Excuse
by Angelfirenze
Summary: Incorrigible. That's what Cuddy and Wilson call him whenever he's pulled some stunt or played a prank or made some comment. It's one of his favorite words, but they don't know why. Considering the circumstances, neither does he. House, M.D/Harry Potter.
1. Chapter 1

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. None of the other stuff is mine, either. Just the convoluted plot.

**Summary:** Incorrigible. That's what Cuddy and Wilson call him whenever he's pulled some stunt or played a prank or made some comment. It's one of his favorite words, but they don't know why. Considering the circumstances, neither does he.

**Rating: M** for darkness, angst, and...well, the fact that it was Smut Tuesday over at **house-cuddy** also says a lot.

**Pairings, etc.:** :sighs: I don't think I have room to list all the possibilities I plan to explore. The CONCRETE ones, however, are House/Cuddy/Wilson and all that that implies. Oh, and James/Lily, for canon-sake, obviously.

**Spoilers:** The entire series, discounting that frustrating as hell epilogue. House, seasons one and two. I flatly refuse to mention the Shitter debacle or its completely irrelevant detraction from the main story. The Demons series by my dear friend, **KidsNurse**, who has kindly consented to let me use her wonderful plot for my own machinations and such. I hope she doesn't regret it.

Special thanks to **silja-b**, who put up with at least six revisions on this thing. She deserves cookies, damn it. Lots of them. Reviews are always encouraged and appreciated.

**Now completely AU, but as DH-compliant as I can make it.**

_...Love of mine, someday you will die and I'll be close behind; I'll follow you into the dark..._

Sometimes he dreams about it. Though that really isn't much to go on because he's dreamed about solving that damned worded Rubik's Cube, too, and it's still taken him two weeks, off and on, to get the sections positioned right. But sometimes, when he's still awake at four am, listening to their breathing on either side of him, he thinks about it.

_Reducto_, something in his head says, or _Avifors_, and the barriers break, his memories coming forth like birds or a fountain of wine from the end of a wand.

Or like that sickly green haze so benign in and of itself, signifying so much more (destruction, malevolence, blood, and death...so _much_ of it...) in their whole.

He shivers, clenching his eyes shut and trying not to remember.

_Obliviate_, he thinks, lifting a hand to his chest. Maybe if he thinks it hard enough, it'll work. He's kidding himself and he knows it.

_"You never worry," her voice is telling him as she hugs him goodbye. It's no use trying to persuade her otherwise. Sure, he worries, but it doesn't always show. He thinks that, deep down, she knows._

_"If I come down with terrible bleeding sores or wake up covered in blisters--"_

_"I'll give you essence of murtlap...or tell you to take an oatmeal bath. One of the two--herpes is a bitch and a half to deal with and I'd hate to have to lecture you on the proper spell for a condom--"_

_And she laughs in that shrieking, wide-eyed way she always did when he's managed to shock her yet again. You'd think she was used to it by now, but..._

_"Gregory House, you are absolutely incorrigible."_

Incorrigible. That's what Cuddy and Wilson call him whenever he's pulled some stunt or played a prank or made some comment. It's one of his favorite words, but they don't know why. Considering the circumstances, neither does he.

Lily had Apparated directly to his apartment herself. He and James had decided to finally call a truce for Lily's and Harry's sakes and Lily thought that dinner would make it official. She had given him the address and had watched him personally burn it. He'd been so relieved to finally get to see her that he hadn't even made any jokes about her taciturn mood. They had been the joking ones, always teasing Regulus for his broody nature and grinning whenever he rose to their bait, which was often.

He'd been late because he'd been too nervous to concentrate properly on Apparating and had Splinched himself in front of a Muggle, costing him six hours of paperwork and two hundred Galleons, leaving him in quite the sore state at the time but all had been forgotten as soon as his eyes had landed on their partially destroyed house.

His ties sit in a box in the back of his closet. They're the only parts of his uniform that he has left. Blue, black, and bronze. Dotted with blood. He'd worn the shirt and tie because Lily had asked him to dress nicely for dinner with James and it was the only decent unrumpled, non-t-shirt thing he'd had at the time.

The blood spatter on the tie is his own because _Avada Kedavra_ doesn't leave a mark. He'd smashed his fist into the door trying to get through it and the rest of his arm had followed suit. He hadn't even realized he'd either broken or fractured his (_hamate, hook of hamate, metacarpal, trapezium, proximal phalanx_) hand, his (_radius, ulna_) arm, his (_scapulae, clavicle_) shoulder, until hours later when the pain had woken him up and it was time for his potion replenishing. It was the last time he'd been in Saint Mungo's. Remus had been the one who found him, he'd later discovered. _Sirius, of course, was..._

NO.

He wants to slam his head back against the bars of Cuddy's bedstead, but that would wake them.

He breathes deeply and counts to one hundred, two hundred...does their multiples by three. He stops after 600, when it's clear he won't be sleeping tonight. He pulls numb then tingly arms out from under one of the pillows and presses the heels of callused hands into his eyes.

He really misses his piano right now, but it's at his apartment alone and in the dark--like him, on most days and some nights.

He almost wishes for a spasm, just for the distraction. The excuse to pop a pill. Then he wants to kill himself because he can see Lily's bright green eyes staring at him with such hurt, such scorn, for letting himself get so wrapped up in trying to be numb. Regulus would sigh and frown, but would let it go and he'd be grateful, but Lily would grieve for him as he does for her.

Then he imagines her tears falling on his face and hears her whispering, asking what she could possibly do to help him want to feel again because he's her brother and she hates what his pain does to him.

After all, Jimmy and Lisa have tried (have done more than they should have, really, at risk to their licenses and sanity and all for just a few ephemeral moments' relief) and his mother has tried and even Stacy. But Stacy didn't know what it was like to hold your best friend's body in your arms, staring at the equally lifeless form of her husband, wondering why they were dead, what the fuck purpose it served. If there even was one. He'd been insanely irritated by James more than once, but not enough to ever want this.

Never, in a million eons.

He's always hated to remember, and never more than now.

The lime green numbers glowing from Cuddy's bedside table color Jimmy's skin and make him look sickly. Wrong body, he believes, but he's in the middle of their tangle, languishing in bare skin and the gentle slide of Cuddy's silken sheets (warmth that he can't seem to find anywhere else except for the bottoms of plastic vials and glass bottles) because he likes it.

_...I love it, but I hate the taste...Weight, keeping me down..._

He feels small and negligible in the middle. It's a feeling he's grown used to and he's learned to use it to his advantage.

So he makes himself negligible now and forces himself to forget.

He remembers what it was like to be little, listening to his father teaching his mother how to use a telephone. He remembers his father being astonished that she'd never used one before. Sometimes it's funny to be a half-blood. Most of the time, though, it isn't.

_"You're an idiot," he tells Regulus, staring (with the same detached sort of fascination that he now employs in his once in a week--or month--cases) at the Dark Mark now etched into the other boy's skin like some macabre tattoo. "And we might as well start planning your funeral now, you altruistic bastard. Tell me--" And here he throws his arms wide, twirling them like a conductor following music. "_How_ did that old bastard convince you to do something so..."_

Stupid_, he'd been about to say. He'd never finished his sentence. Regulus was staring at the Mark, upper teeth working over lower lip in that way that he was so familiar with. Grey eyes clouded with worry, framed by black hair and the silver and green of his uniform._

_"I might as well tell you goodbye now," he says, and the backs of his eyes burn. Regulus looks up at him before reaching up to undo the fastenings of his cloak._

_"You're cold," Regulus tells him, pale and frowning. He reaches up and straightens Greg's hat and right in that second Greg might want to kiss him, possibly to say the goodbye that couldn't seem to find its way out of his chest. But he doesn't. It's a regret he'll carry for the rest of his life._

_"No, I'm not," he denies, the burning spreading down from his eyes to his gut, the acidic sensation of fear roiling and churning like he'd drank sour milk. But Regulus disagrees, pulling the cloak off square shoulders and placing it around his own rounder ones. Lily always complained about his slouching._

_"It's not bad to be tall," she'd tell him, pulling him into a straighter position. "It's not bad to stand out."_

Yes, it is,_ he'd always wanted to tell her._ And I do it enough without trying.

_He wouldn't though. Couldn't bring himself to reject her caring gestures. To make her go away._

He watches, his brain and his vision in a sort of sideways leaning fog, as Wilson scoops eggs onto his plate. He'd follow the conversation Wilson is having with Cuddy, but that would require concentration and he just can't bring himself to fake any right now. The date on the calendar is mocking him, a surreal glow to it from across the kitchen. He'd like to think he was imagining it, but he can't let it go.

Tomorrow was November. All Saints Day. Today was October. All Hallows Eve. The inconsistency of those names tickled Lily terribly when he and Regulus first pointed it out to her. He tries not to remember her laugh because today Lily died and it makes him bleed inside. He's tempted to ask Jimmy to do some exploratory surgery. Maybe an 'insert prefix here'-dectomy would lessen the heaviness pulling on his viscera. It's been twenty-five years but that doesn't feel right. It doesn't seem more than a minute.

Someone is touching him. He sits listlessly as Cuddy's fingers trace his collar, her lips alighting on the back of his head for fleeting moments until she and Wilson go to the hospital. They let him mourn in silence and space. He always gets to take these three days off. He's never been very in-depth about them, but she and Wilson don't seem to mind. His team won't be calling. There are never any cases taken in the end of October. It's a firm rule, one Chase knows well and was quick to inform Cameron and Foreman of. The consequences of breaking that law are well-versed throughout the hospital. No one so much as asks for a consult or even a packet of sugar (like they'd ever ask for that) lest they drown in House's clinic hours for the next month.

He's thankful, even if he can't seem to say so.

His mother calls him every day this time of year. She's no stranger to telephone usage by now but still prefers to use owl post most days. It's how they usually communicate. She feels, however, that it's important for him to hear her voice on certain occasions.

"You're eating," she says (never phrasing it as a question as though asking would make him say no just because), her telephone voice always louder than her usual speaking tone.

She seems convinced that he can't hear her quite as well despite the fact that she's been using telephones for over forty years now. Still, he doesn't mind. It keeps him grounded in the conversation and doesn't let his thoughts carry him away. He relishes the tether, even if he can't admit that he needs it.

"Yes, Mom," he says, his voice quiet, eyes burning and bloodshot. He ate the eggs Wilson cooked him this morning. Drank the strong coffee Cuddy made. He remembers introducing Lily and Regulus to coffee and beer, remembers the way their faces twisted at the unfamiliar tastes. The way he laughed as Lily struggled to swallow the beer and not spit. How Regulus choked on his coffee the first time and added a pound of sugar and even more milk to his cups thereafter. He almost threw the mug at the wall, but managed to restrain himself this time. Last year, Wilson wasn't so lucky and spent thirty minutes cleaning up ceramic shards and caffeine off most of the kitchen surfaces. He tried to say he was sorry, but all that wanted out was screams. He shook inside and waited until that night. Pounded Lisa, then Jimmy into the mattress, trying to use love as a cover for despair.

_...You'll be loved, you'll be loved...Like you never have known...And the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams...Just a series of blurs, like I never occurred...Someday, you will be loved..._

Or perhaps not. He still doesn't know and isn't interested in pondering the question.

"I love you," his mother tells him, and he nods, wishing like he does every year that he had his fireplace connected to the Floo Network for this one moment. But that would defeat the purpose of having defected in the first place, so he clenches his eyes shut and leans against the back of his couch. "I love you, too."

He doesn't ask about how Wales is. He doesn't want to know.

House, in general, has always enjoyed watching people's reactions. Jimmy, in particular, is excellent for responses that are completely above and beyond the situation itself. Cuddy's good for the little flush she gets whenever he make some comment that makes him want to throw her back against one of their desks and defile it properly. It's not much, but it's a reason to smile (to laugh until he and Lisa are breathless and hold onto each other to keep from falling over and he feels drunk with glee and lightheaded afterward and can forget for a while) so he takes it.

He figures Cuddy and Wilson wonder if they were ever more than friends. They weren't, he knows, but that didn't stop curiosity from making its rounds. The memory of Regulus' skin on his is fresh as Jimmy's lips wander over the back of his neck. Lisa's hands on him, her breath in his ear and he recalls Lily's flaming hair brushing across his shoulders as she rose and fell above him. Jimmy's fingers around his wrist are Regulus's and he has to open his eyes and see Jimmy's deep brown ones to get the facts straight.

But crushes and inquiries aside, they were his firsts. He was Cuddy's, and neither of them were Wilson's, but there's only so much of an indentation that can be filled.

It's not for lack of trying and he's reminded as he lets his hands follow Jimmy's over Lisa's body, loving her moans and gasps and the way she clings to him with sweat-slick hands. The feeling of Jimmy's hair brushing against his back as they crash together, Jimmy into him, he into Lisa. It's almost perfect.

_"So when's the wedding?" He asked cheerily and Sirius goes to answer for half a second before Remus stomps on Sirius' foot and they both send him identical glares of 'We are_ not _together!' irritation._

_He smothers a chuckle and continues on toward Transfiguration._

**1999**

"House. Do you _really_ think I'd be here if it weren't of dire importance? It's taken me nearly two years to track you down as it is."

"_Of dire importance,_ you say, oh great Half-Blood Prince? Lucius finally managed to knock you up, I see. The resemblance is uncanny." He smirks until he realizes the kid is too damned scared to take offense. He's practically pissing his pants, his eyes glued almost hypnotically to the pestle and bowl on House's desk. Probably because it's the only thing he can immediately recognize in this office. That knowledge gives House a tiny sliver of satisfaction at having hidden himself so completely in something so foreign to them. "And about that 'two years' thing? How the hell are you still alive? Much less the kid--"

"If you're done--"

"What the fuck do you expect me to do, Snape?" he asks, contempt thick in his voice and managing to cover up the burgeoning concern that's building now.

"I need--"

"Safe passage, refuge, all that shit--yeah, I _get_ that, you fucking moron. You've got balls of titanium, coming here. Is Peter hiding in your pocket, writing notes in the lining of your robes? Going to report to Daddy as soon as--"

The blood has drained out of Snape's already sallow face, giving him a dead, papery sort of look. House is pleased to note he's started to shake almost imperceptibly.

"House."

"You killed her." His voice is frigid, his blue eyes even more so. "You killed them both."

It's a moment before Snape says anything, but House is able to detect a change in the timbre of the greasy git's voice. "I...had nothing to...do with..."

"Yeah, you didn't do anything, did you? You let him die. You told Dumbledore you'd protect him. You didn't. That monster, Greyback, tore him apart. MacNair finished the fucking job and gave his ax a hummer as a reward. He loves his little harbinger of death _just_ that much. Now you want me to do better for you. Blow me."

The desperation that flashes across Snape's face makes him think for a moment that the bastard might actually consider it. He's a little sickened, just now.

"Don't help me, then," Snape says and it's clear that it is the last thing House expects him to say. "Help him." Snape frowns, giving Draco a look. "He's done nothing to deserve this."

"Well, then, I guess it's his bad luck that he has you to look out for him, isn't it?"

He wants Snape to say something, to at least give him the courtesy of a curse. The Leg-Locker or _Diffindo_ would do nicely.

"Yes, it is."

The darkness and anger in Snape's eyes has drained away. Only exhaustion and...guilt...are left. It's rather unnerving to see, actually.

_What the fuck did you do?_ He decides he doesn't want to know. He learned Legilimency and Occlumency for a reason and this was certainly a time to use at least one of them. He analyzes the Periodic Table of Elements instead of figuring out Snape's motivations, which leads to him thinking about flirting with Cuddy under the cover of biochemistry as a teaching assistant. He's always had a soft spot for bleach (_Sodium hypochlorite (NaClO)--your father's lab coats were never so bright, Cuddles..._), but tries not to think about Cuddy's breasts while Snape is standing there and trying to see his thoughts. Memories of Cuddy are his, damn it, and they're going to stay that way.

"You hypocritical bastard," House bites out, giving Snape a withering glare for good measure. He spends a good five minutes bitching, but shoves two sets of scrubs into Snape's arms nonetheless. He wanted to give Snape an open-back gown and have them both admitted, but that would have required entering both Snape and Draco's information and all that crap into the system. The only two people he could afford to tell were going to have to be it. It is the first and last favor Severus Snape has ever and will ever owe him.

Hopefully, the same will bode true for Draco Malfoy, as well.

That night, House phones his mother from his office and explains to her the plan in Italian. He doesn't know whether or not to pity these two, who will soon spend so much time in his father's company. He decides to split it down the middle and feel bad for Draco, who's the enigma of the two. The kid is practically a stranger, after all, and House can just see the innocence dripping off him despite all the posturing he wants to do. He wonders if Draco knows anything at all about pretending to be a Muggle. Short of giving the kid a crash course in Muggle Studies, he settles for teaching him what basics he can at the moment.

"I know how to flush a toilet, sir," Draco tells him flatly, annoyed further by House's subsequent smirk.

"Now, now, I know these things _look_ simple but, really, you can never be too careful." Draco has to suppress a scowl and almost manages it. Not quite, though, and House counts it as a victory.

"Shut up, House," Snape snarls, trying to look threatening in pink scrubs but failing spectacularly. It's an effort made in vain. House knows Snape's jealous because he gave Draco green ones.

Before they leave, he casts the Fidelius Charm on himself. His wand _('Ash, phoenix feather, twelve and one-half inches long...excellent wand for charms, Mr. House...')_ is cold in his fingers, but feels as though he held it just yesterday instead of sixteen years before. He really doesn't think Snape will enjoy Nyack, but figures he gets what he pays for. Then it occurs to House that he's doing this completely free of charge.

_Fuck._ He throws Snape another filthy look and they each Apparate to Nyack, New York. It's Draco's first time in a Muggle neighborhood and his disdain is apparent.

"If you have a plan, Whitesnake, now would be an excellent time for show and tell." He doesn't bother to clue Draco in on extinct rock bands, which doesn't matter because Draco is confused by both references and House rolls his eyes. "Didn't your parents at least send you to primary school? Or did they want to get a head start on trying to turn you into a sociopath?"

Draco doesn't answer, instead concentrating with all his might on the concrete echoing below their feet. House continues to soliloquize to himself about the sorry state of pre-school education these days (apparently, show and tell is no longer a crucial part of daytime education for children and that makes him sad; the mere chance to speechify about dead grass you found at some radioactive dumping site is being taken out of the hands of small children everywhere) and ignores them for the next few minutes.

They turn the corner onto House's parents' street and immediately see the porch light of the House residence shining in the darkness of two am.

"Never mind. Look, kid, I don't know exactly what to tell you, but for the next few weeks, you don't speak unless spoken to. You will wear what my mother buys you at the PX--"

Draco gives him another confused look. House scowls in irritation. "Never mind what that is. Just...be polite. Take up something to help pass the time. The piano does wonders on that front. And..." he runs a hand through hair already unruly (his mother always called it a glimpse into that whirling dervish otherwise known as his brain. His father called it--and him--a rat's nest that defied every regulation in the book). "Don't piss off my father, alright? That's the best advice I can give you. Whatever he tells you to do, you do it. No questions. No complaints. And if he's working on some fucking thing, don't ask him about it. Just go...occupy yourself elsewhere. And if you go out, make sure you're back at five pm, sharp or you won't be eating dinner."

Draco stares at him for a moment, slightly apprehensive, but then that practiced blank mask falls over his face. It's something he knows well, masks.

Then he stops and turns to face Snape fully, his face blank, eyes bright with anger. "If you get my mother harmed in any way, shape, or form--Jesus won't be able to save you. Is that understood?"

It doesn't matter that he's on the disbelieving side of agnostic or that these two are card-carrying atheists. He only cares that his mother makes it through this safely.

He'd changed clothes, stopping off at his apartment and dressing all in black. His _Boondocks Saints_ t-shirt seems strangely appropriate.

_And Shepherds we shall be,  
For thee, my Lord, for thee.  
Power hath descended forth from thy hand,  
So our feet may swifly carry out thy command.  
And we shall flow a river forth to thee,  
And teeming with souls, shall it ever be._

_In Nominae Patris, et filli, et Spiritus Sancti._

_Amen._

He remembers the words to other prayers, as well. One military prayer (the irony never fails to amuse him) he learned from his lapsed Catholic father as a small child. He's found the Saints' prayer to be surprisingly useful in conjunction with the Hippocratic Oath, and the Kaddish of his childhood Shabbat nights spent in synagogue with his mother. He'd wondered all sorts of things about all the meanings of what was later considered a creation myth by those who came after. He still doesn't know what to believe and hates that whoever's in charge, wherever they are...could be so...coldly, calculatingly detached from what was happening right under their noses.

He doesn't know the answer and isn't in any particular hurry to find out.

The ones he's learned from his mother (and Lisa and Jimmy), though, stand out the most. He doesn't know why he clings to them the way he does, as they don't seem to have any relevance in his life that he can see. But right this second, it seems fitting.

_"Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha olam, she hehiyanu v'kiy'manu v'higi'anu la z'man ha zeh."_

"What the bloody--"

House whips out his wand and points it directly at Snape's chest. _Silencio,_ he thinks and Snape's voice is cut off midsnark. "Shut up. I was praying. I know you don't give a damn what the hell's going on with you, but I'd like to at least pretend things might be a little okay. Allow me my denial. It's the least you owe me."

Then he knocks on the door, three times fast, two times slow. It opens immediately and House is thrust inside by a brown-haired witch in pajamas and a bathrobe, her feet in slippers.

"Jesus, Mom, you could have told me you were sleeping."

"Come in, Greg--" she doesn't waste time with pleasantries and that's good. She gives Snape and Draco each a quick once-over. There's a quick look of motherly pity for Draco, but an even quicker flash of...anger, sadness, hatred...for Snape and he can't quite tell which but now isn't the time to mull it over. He ducks into the house (the first his parents bought together after his father, a Full Bird Colonel, finally retired), immediately dropping onto the arm of the couch like he always does and enjoying the quick admonishment he gets from his mother before sliding down onto the cushion.

"You're half-starved to death, both of you," she says to him and Draco, ignoring Snape and it makes House want to chuckle a bit. His mother can be cold when she puts her mind to it and it's always an interesting sight just who she directs the draft at.

She retrieves her wand from the living room table and beckons the three of them into the kitchen before seating Draco and Snape at the table. House stops cold in the doorway when he realizes his father is sitting there fully-dressed and waiting for an explanation. He doesn't have one and it's not his to give anyway.

"Gregory," his father says, laying the newspaper down in front of him and eyeing both Snape and Draco, who--and he didn't think this was possible--pales a bit more. "You look a damned mess."

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Hi, Dad. I'm shitty. Thanks for asking."

"Don't swear, Greg," his mother scolds, giving her wand a bit of a flourish and letting a thick sauce (he would guess alfredo mushroom from the look and smell) flow from it into a pot. A larger one already has tortellini boiling away. "And sit down. You haven't eaten in God knows how long."

Greg sighs, but does as he's told. He motions for Draco to do the same and resigns himself when his mother places two heaping plates of pasta in front of them. Then she gives Snape another long, cold look but sighs abruptly before pulling out another chair for him. "Eat," Blythe House orders, placing another plate before him.

Snape looks massively uncomfortable and House takes the time to let the flavor melt the heaven on his palate into a delicious gooey mess as he chews. His mouth is closed, though, because he _does_ have home training, no matter how often he demonstrates otherwise. The silence is thick and uncomfortable and House enjoys every moment of it, staring at Snape's face as though he were the latest episode of _General Hospital._ Snape scowls deeply, but eats the food he's presented with. Draco takes a gingerly bite before overwhelming hunger gives in and he eats himself into an exhausted haze.

_Oh, this is going to be good._

...TBC...


	2. Chapter 2

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name.

**Summary:** It was a terrible sort of relief. One he felt guilty about accepting. It was difficult, and begrudgingly interesting as he explained himself to Dickinson. He's sure the shrink would have called for the men in white coats to come get him if he hadn't had his wand.

**Rating: M** for darkness, angst, and...well, the fact that it's Smut Tuesday tomorrow over at **housecuddy** also says a lot.

**Pairings, etc.:** sighs I don't think I have room to list all the possibilities I plan to explore. The CONCRETE ones, however, are House/Cuddy/Wilson and all that that implies. Oh, and James/Lily, for canon-sake, obviously.

**Spoilers:** The entire series, discounting that frustrating as hell epilogue. House, seasons one and two. I flatly refuse to mention the Shitter debacle or its completely irrelevant detraction from the main story. The Demons series by my dear friend, **kidsnurse**, who has kindly consented to let me use her wonderful plot for my own machinations and such. I hope she doesn't regret it.

**Author's Note:** Synaesthesia is an actual neurological phenomenon that involves the senses and a sort of unintended integration of two or more as a result of stimuli in the surrounding environment. It seems to go along with Sensory Integration Disorder, but appears to be much more fun.

Reviews are always encouraged and appreciated.

_...Wake up and face me...don't play dead, 'cause maybe...someday I will walk away and say...You disappoint me...Maybe you're better off this way..._

It's his first session with Dickinson after All Hallows. The shrink has, of course, noticed the sharp downswing in his mood since the last session, when his mood and perspective started to take that taciturn dip that even the worst spasm couldn't seem to achieve. Has noticed he's barely looked at the snacks offered. Notes the way both Cuddy and Wilson are hovering outside Dickinson's office as though afraid to leave. He's on the floor in a corner today, thankful leg pain never got in the way of that anymore. It's a full hour before he says anything. Dickinson watched as he fidgeted with the wand holster under his right sleeve, an interested expression on his face.

"Do you know what magic is?" House asks after an hour of total silence, Lily and Regulus and Hogwarts and Godric's Hollow and Severus and Drake and his mother and his father flashing through his mind so fast, he thinks he might be sick if he had a full stomach. Jimmy and Lisa had ordered Compazine for him that morning, insisting he needed the sleep in addition to the stillness it would give his gut. He doesn't even remember if he agreed or not, but he remembers watching listlessly as Jimmy prepared the dose, injecting the antiemetic and watching nervously as he drifted off to sleep. He doesn't remember much after that. Formless dreams on mute. It was the only good thing about sedatives that he could recall. He no longer woke up gasping, his heart pounding its way out of his chest. Instead he just...floated, as though his misery were hovering around him, but not actually touching him. He feels like he should be checking for Dementors or something.

It was a terrible sort of relief. One he felt guilty about accepting. It was difficult, and begrudgingly interesting as he explained himself to Dickinson. He's sure the shrink would have called for the men in white coats to come get him if he hadn't had his wand.

"The Statute of Secrecy," he said softly, using it to draw glowing lines of light in the air. "Doesn't specify what 'close friends or family' is. Besides..." he shrugs. "It hurts. I want the hurt to stop, right?" He looked at Dickinson, then, expecting fear or something. The quiet understanding on the other man's face was surprising to say the least.

"You feel guilty about wanting to stop missing them so badly."

House's eyes drifted back to the ceiling. He sighed. "They haunt me. They're not ghosts. Happy people don't become ghosts."

Then he thinks for a moment, those words cluttering up his thought process and making it feel like he has cystic fibrosis in his brain, with the memories like so much phlegm, making it heavy and viscous and damned near impossible to get thoughts in or out. "They wouldn't have become ghosts. Death is only the next step in a process--it's logical and they knew it was coming. They only worried for Harry..." He breathes. "For me. It's an equation we won't know the answer to until it's time to get it."

Dickinson gives him a look he thinks is thoughtful. "You feel confident in that assessment. That everything is like mathematics and that even religion figures into that equation somewhere--an explanation--or maybe even a gene or anomaly in the chromosomes...an answer for why some people believe, some don't, for why some people--like you, it seems--believe it's impossible to know the answer so it's useless to worry about it until such time when it's relevant, which certainly isn't now."

House frowns. "I have more pertinent things to be obsessed over, obviously." Namely, the way his entire chest cavity feels flooded with grief and that the dam will break without the reinforcements it so desperately needs. What those 'reinforcements' would be made of, he has no idea. He doesn't even really care. "I...want to live again. Thinking about the past and the future is..." He runs his hands through his hair. "I don't know. It's the memories that won't go away. I see them in the way Lisa teases me at work. The way Jimmy gets _so worried_ when I'm in pain for whatever reason. I wanted to have a Vicodin that night. I wanted a spasm."

And he cringes because it's the same reason it took so long for anyone to believe him about the pain in the first place. _Drug-seeking behavior..._

"God, I'm pathetic." He laughs then and the sound is harsh on his ears. Forced. "I finally get them to understand and then start doing the very shit that had them doubting me in the first place."

"I don't think you wanted the Vicodin," Dickinson says in that quiet, calm voice he's grown so used to. "You said you wanted a spasm."

"An excuse."

"But you didn't want the Vicodin for the hurt of loss. You wanted it for the physical pain that a spasm would induce. You wanted to have a reason _to take_ one. You didn't, though, did you?"

House stares at him, a little confused as to what he's getting at and not liking it. "No. What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything," Dickinson says, that word hanging in the air like a cloud of smoke. "Your brain was occupied with the memories of your friends, creating pain. What do you think would have happened if you didn't miss them?"

House stares for a moment before a cold look settles over his eyes and he looks down at his withered leg. "That doesn't make any sense. Usually psychosomatic pain is a response _to_ intense emotion. You're saying that my being depressed _saved_ me from a spasm?"

"Dr. House," Dickinson says, addressing him by his title the way he does whenever he wants to make sure a particular--usually medically related--fact sinks in. "You've already proven to be an anomaly on many fronts regarding pain. You have to remember that most people--and I'm sure, most wizards--don't use pain as an activity. It doesn't enter into their usual time-table. Most people _don't have_ a time-table. Your pathological need to occupy yourself is for your own safety and this is a part of that. What would be helpful to you is beginning to sift through those memories, using the good to counteract the bad."

He thinks, then, of Occlumency and Legilimency. "I already know how to sift through my memories. Layer and hide them. Build a whole environment to hide them _in_. My mother first taught me how to do that when I was five. I think she was trying to help me learn to occupy myself so that I didn't get into trouble with my father. It's called Occlumency, where you create a sort of storage system for your thoughts and can examine them at will or hide them from those you don't want to see them. And Legilimency is sort of the opposite. You digging through someone else's thoughts and using them to your advantage."

"I take it your mother is a witch," Dickinson says as though he hears this sort of thing every day. House nods.

"Pure-blood. My father is a Muggle--like you. Non-magical people like you, Lisa, and Jimmy are called Muggles. Lily was...Muggleborn. Her husband James was pure-blooded. Regulus was pure-blooded, as was his brother, Sirius. Remus--this werewolf I know--nice guy, takes care of Harry like he's his own--is half-blooded like me, Severus, and Harry."

He doesn't explain who Severus, Remus, or Harry are, though. Dickinson doesn't ask. And he flinches, then, because the tightness in his chest just increased another inch or five.

"This is important in the magical world--blood status." Dickinson states everything like a fact, but House knows he only asks questions.

"It used to be. I wouldn't know anymore. I haven't had anything to do with the wizarding world in..." He gestures vaguely, then reaches down and uses his arms to push himself away from the wall so he can slide into a supine position on the floor. "But Lord Vibrator is dead, so I don't think it'd be a big thing anymore." But then he regrets his choice of words. Vibrators are good things and don't deserve to be blamed for the megalomania and psychopathic tendencies of others.

"The Dark Tosser," he amends, momentarily adopting the British accent he'd had at the time. Then he lets his voice slide back into the New Jersey accent he's had for nearly a decade. "The Dark Tosser killed my best friend--my sister, practically--Lily. One of the Death Eaters--his followers, that sociopathic lot--killed Regulus. Two of them, actually. Fenrir Greyback was another werewolf, a sick son of a bitch who ate children for snacks and used their broken bones to pick masticated flesh out of his teeth. He was the one who bit Remus when he was five. Walden MacNair finished the job. Hacked what was left of Regulus open like a fucking pumpkin. I saw the report, the photographs--one of my Healer--I was finishing up training to be a Mediwizard--fellows at the time did his examination before his funeral--"

His speech is rushed, disjointed. His thoughts are overlapping one another, clashing together like badly played notes and he sits up sharply, then, suddenly aware that he's shaking violently.

"Do you want some water?" Dickinson asks, his face still in that careful mask.

"Got any firewhiskey?" House bites out, a bitter laugh following. "Of course you don't. You're a muggle. You don't know what the fuck firewhiskey _is._"

He climbs slowly to his feet, using the wall to leverage himself into a standing position before grabbing his cane and beginning to pace in his uneven gait around the room.

_...See the animal in its cage that you built...Are you sure which side you're on?...Better not look him too closely in the eyes...Are you sure what side of the glass you are on..._

He thinks back to when he left Snape and Drake at his parents' house. After being force-fed and having showers, Snape had elected to sleep on the couch in the den, which House found hilarious because his father had finally convinced his mother to buy a leather one and that had to be uncomfortable as hell. As it was, House had woken up sometime in the dark. A quick look at the lighted dial of his watch told him it was three forty-five. His side hurt. _Thank you, bladder._

After relieving himself, he wandered back past the den to find Snape fiddling with the remote control for the television.

_"Put that down before you blow it up," he growled, coming over and snatching the plastic apparatus out of Snape's hands. "You never answered my question."_

_"How did I manage to find you?" Snape had frowned for a moment before something approaching mirth had come to adorn his pallid face. "There's something to be said, obviously, for hiding in the Muggle world. The Dark Lord--"_

_"Voldemort. You're in this house, in my presence, you call it Voldemort."_

_"Ah, yes," And here Snape chuckled. "'Fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself.'"_

_"If you can't say the name of the monster who murdered everyone you care about, you didn't deserve them in the first place." He didn't snarl, though. He was tired. Annoyed, but exhausted. "Voldemort."_

_"Fine," Snape had agreed in clipped tones. "Voldemort will never come here. He hates everything to do with Muggles, obviously. Will cling to magic with every fiber of his unnatural being. Which is why you came back, of course. Why I did."_

_"Why your mother left in the first place," House says and Snape looks at him with something like surprise. "You forget, my mother knew of yours--Purebloods are like that. She feels bad for you, you know. She thinks you wouldn't be this way if things had gone differently. The problem with that is that everyone would be another way if things had gone differently. And there's no way to tell which way things_ should have_ gone. 'Should have' is a relative term. So is 'trust.' And 'love,' for that matter. 'Common sense'--"_

_"Ah, yes," and here Snape actually bites back a chuckle. "Everything is relative with you, isn't it? Nothing is ever concrete--"_

_"Yeah, a right philosopher, I am. Listen, science is concrete. Medicine is concrete. Senses are concrete. Input. It's feelings and emotions that are the problem. They cause attachment, which changes the output--the outcome. Memories can make anything whatever you want--all that's required is the will to change something to make it fit what you want. People like my father, like Voldemort...forget you can't do that with other people. Personally, I think if someone had just gotten ahold of old Voldie and done a little localized Obliviation--or, perhaps, go the Muggle route and do a partial lobectomy--hell, a lobotomy--just remove any trace of personality. Destroy any sense of self...then we wouldn't have this problem."_

_Snape had actually laughed, then. It was a little scary, really._

"You still believe that, don't you?" Dickinson asks him now and Severus's broken, bleeding body flashes before his eyes.

"Not really. It's not true, actually. Removing memories doesn't affect the emotions that govern them. Tearing out the neocortex and destroying a person doesn't mean removing all emotions. The base instincts are still there buried deep in the reptilian brain. All the anger and aggression would still be there. I think I was just trying to make myself feel better--which I suck at, by the way."

Dickinson nods. "You hate this Severus Snape person?"

House sighs, wanting to say 'yes, unequivocably,' but knowing it to be untrue, really. "I don't know. He cost me two of the few people who mean more to me than any others, but I don't know what I would have done in his position. And he was my friend, too. I miss him, too. So much has happened...too much..."

"You find it difficult to put yourself in other people's perspectives or even to make a decision about something you haven't experienced yourself. This ability you fostered, Legilimency...you don't use it to manipulate people...just to attempt to understand them. Otherwise, you won't."

House's gaze flickers up from the quarters he seems to have dug out of his pocket and is playing with. He doesn't remember doing that. He sees a pen lying on a nearby side table and grabs it, taking it apart and putting it back together again in moments.

"I don't get why people care so much, what others think of them. My father cares so much about his reputation--why? He calls the guys he served with 'his brothers,' says they share a bond closer than blood. But I think it's bullshit. He can't tell me that if he landed in the hospital tomorrow, any of those assholes--because most of them were assholes--would drop everything and rush off to Nyack, cramming the hospital halls, just waiting to see him. He doesn't know what family fucking is."

"But you do," Dickinson says and Lily, Regulus, his mother, Severus, Jimmy, Lisa, Remus, Drake, and Harry flash again through his mind. All his problems with his leg. Even though he wouldn't allow them to come see him--because they'd certainly asked--Remus, Drake, and Harry had all sent him 'Get Well' cards. Harry's had actually come with a wizard chess set from Ron Weasley and some wonderfully complicated magical puzzle that Hermione Granger had made up for him. Drake, of all people, had sent him a new game for his Nintendo DS. His time in the muggle world had apparently made a good impression. House had beaten the game after two days and had managed to email Drake about it before Jimmy revoked his computer privileges for that 'Chihuahua-cide' stunt. Ron's brothers, Fred and George, sent him a 'Conflagration Deluxe' and told him to use it wisely. For the first time since he'd been little, he'd looked forward to the Fourth of July. Jimmy and Lisa had stared in awe, ooh-ing and ahh-ing like little kids, and Lisa had wondered anxiously if the apartment was going to catch on fire and he had smiled.

"Yeah," is all he says.

He was never much of a talker, really. Everyone at the hospital thinks he has a big mouth, but that can be (and is, exhaustingly) faked. Jimmy and Lisa know that, given the opportunity, he'll go days without saying a word. When he first met Lisa, there in the Gerald R. Ford Library at U of M, he hadn't actually said anything to her. She was sitting at his regular table by the window and he'd sat down in his usual seat, removing his bag and unpacking it, placing everything he needed all over the table and Lisa had watched for five full minutes as he said nothing, simply reading.

_"Excuse me," she said and he'd still not looked at her. He'd been doing his lesson plan for the biology class he was subbing later that evening--ironically, one she'd attended--and didn't look up from his scribbled notes. He supposed she'd gotten fed up somewhere along the line because the next thing he knew, she had smacked her hand down in the middle of his notes. He'd looked up then, to see those dark blue eyes he'd come to know so well, glaring at him in righteous indignation._

_"You don't know if I was waiting for someone or--"_

_"We've been here for--" he checked his watch. "Twenty-five minutes, most of which you've spent being annoyed with me for sitting at what is my usual table. If I'd intercepted someone, they would have been here by now. If someone was here, and I interrupted you, they'd've been back by now. No one's coming. Sit back down. You need to finish studying for the exam I'm proctoring for you tonight."_

_She'd stared at him for the next ten seconds, and he couldn't tell if she was angry or not or even if _she_ could tell if she was angry or not. Finally, though, she dropped back into her seat, an irritated sulk settling over her now._

___...You've been working, you've been hiding...And you look half-dead, half the time..._

_"You still could have asked--"_

_"Why ask if I already know the answer?"_

_"But you don't_ know--_"_

_"Yes, I did."_

He wishes now that she would have thrown something at him. She certainly has since then. Then something occurs to him.

"Why haven't you asked your dear secretary out there for commitment papers?" House's gaze is on Dickinson, the other man's eyebrow rising as if to punctuate his question. "Or called Jimmy and Lisa in here to discuss my obvious lapse in sanity?"

Dickinson inhales, exhales, then gestures toward the wand in House's hand. "Well, to be fair, it _is_ quite...I want to say 'galling,' but I don't think that's the right term for it. Obviously, whether magic is real or a figment of your imagination--which, considering the demonstration you put on for me, I'd say it isn't--it's obviously a deeply ingrained part of you. Rather like your being the son of a career military officer. If magic wasn't a part of your life, if the military hadn't been...you'd be a completely different person. Despite your profound gift for imagination--"

"You mean lying like a damned rug."

And here Dickinson laughs. "Dr. House, you don't lie--not for nefarious purposes. From what James has told me, you've only lied in jest or if you felt the benefit sincerely outweighed the risk. Ego--despite what your colleagues seem to believe--is not a factor in how you live your life. You don't own a motorcycle because you think it makes you look sexy."

And here House laughs with Dickinson. "Stop hitting on me. What would your husband think?"

Dickinson laughs even harder at that. "My point is that if you bought that motorcycle for how it looks, then you never would have gotten one with a huge scrape on the side that, in your own words, 'looks like crap.' You bought it for the same reason you do most things. To distract yourself and shape your sensory input into something you're free to enjoy. And when I say 'gift for imagination,' something you told me about when your mother taught you the piano comes to mind. You told me she said it was like a story that you could tell any way you wanted. How did her description make you feel?"

House takes a deep breath and remembers being small. Remembers pushing those keys and the sounds they made. The colors he saw with the sounds. It was magical.

Then he laughs. "Music isn't magic."

"But they produce the same feelings in you, those two things."

"They make up a picture, for me," House says, then, thinking of how F sharp is his favorite shade of medium blue. "In my head. Or in front of my eyes. Behind them. Something. I've never really been able to describe it."

"You mean you see the notes as you play them, like a rainbow or a palette of colors."

House nods, then, and plays a few invisible notes in the air before him. "I didn't even think about it when I was little. I told my mom that sounds--especially music--made colors and I think she thought I was just saying stuff. Apparently, I used to make up songs about things. Anyway, she would sing to me and I'd see splotches of color, like someone was painting something in front of me."

"Did you think it just went along with your magic?"

"No. Usually, accidental magic has a detrimental effect, unless someone is put in a dangerous situation. I got into an argument with my father when I was ten and broke every window in the house. I really got it for that."

"He beat you."

House just nods, scowling again. "He used to tell my mother, 'It's nothing my father didn't do to me.' Like that was supposed to make me fucking feel better--" Then he laughs harshly again. "But when has he ever cared about that? And it's never occurred to him that he's even more screwed up than I am if he's justifying treating me like shit. I hate it when people try to justify hurting others. As though they have a right to do it. Self-defense is one thing. But look at me--"

And Dickinson does, takes in the thin, partially wasted man before him. "My father is a Marine, weighs twice as much as I did when I was in fucking college, and could snap me like a fucking twig. I was four fucking years old, what the hell--_how_ can you justify that?"

"I think you're discounting your own strength," Dickinson tells him in a neutral tone and memories of the bruises he gave Jimmy during his EMG flash behind his eyes.

"I didn't mean to hurt Wilson," House murmurs, disgusted with himself all over again. "I'm sorry."

"I have no doubt in my mind that James has completely forgiven you for that _accidental_ offense. No doubt, he doesn't blame you in the slightest. He's simply relieved you took the comfort he offered. He knows how hard that was for you. I meant, Dr. House, your strength of will. What interests me is your unsure position on whether you actually deserved such treatment or not."

"What?"

"On the one hand, you understand that his behavior toward you was wrong and completely out of proportion with anything you might have done to receive such punishment in the first place. On the other hand, you seem to believe that you're incapable of doing things properly in the first place and that if you'd only done it right the first time, it never would have happened."

_You brought this on yourself, son._

"The problem with that line of thinking is the fact that your father never told you what the right--in _his_ eyes--thing to do was in the first place, did he?"

House shakes his head, slowly lowering himself to the floor again, taking comfort in the feeling of the solid wall behind him, warmed with central heating against the bitter chill outside.

"He just expected you--a small child with no conceivable knowledge of how the world worked--or his version of it, seemingly--to know. He was very inconsistent in that regard."

"He hated when I asked questions. When I touched things. Did experiments. If I knew where something he was looking for was, that was just luck. There is no such thing as luck."

_You know what your problem is, Greg? You just don't know how lucky you are._

Then he removes his wand from the holster, draws runes in the air. They convalesce into a sort of glowing cube before solidifying and falling into his lap. A new puzzle to solve.

"How did he feel about your being a wizard?"

House concentrates on locking the pieces together into shapes, watching them glow anew as he finishes creating something else. Like Play-Doh, only better. He doesn't look at Dickinson. It makes the ache in his chest come back.

"He didn't have much of a choice. He married a witch. It was nice like the piano. Something my mom and I could do, but he couldn't."

"A sort of secret between the two of you."

House shrugs.

_...I'm going to stay inside...I'm going to stay inside for good..._

"Your father was stationed in England when you were a boy. When you first came to know these people." Dickinson knows that House is a brat. Knows what that means. Knows what his father used to do to him if he got too closely underfoot because children should be seen and not heard. Books were for big people. The piano, too.

"Dr. House," Dickinson says and House looks up, the image of his father in his full-dress uniform wafting through his mind like smoke. "You were thinking of your father."

"Whatever. He's not the focus here."

"He's obviously at least a part of it. He's certainly part of why you're who you are." And House frowns at that because his father is like the Coxsackie virus in an unfortunate peds patient, invading his heart and destroying the cells one by one, slashing them and breaking them open. He should be dead. Or, at least, he feels that way.

"You're not angry at her?"

House looks at Dickinson again. "What?"

"Your mother. She didn't protect you from your father. Didn't stop him from hurting you. Never noticed the marks he left on you. Let him make you sleep in the backyard, take ice baths--"

"Shut up," House snarls, then, hurling the puzzle away. It hits the wall and breaks into pieces, taking bits of the wall with it. House flicks his wand and the damage to the wall is undone, the puzzle lying still broken where it landed. "Just shut up."

He doesn't say a word for the rest of the session.

_...Don't want to stay inside...for good, for good, for good, for good, for good, for good, for good...fuck off...for good..._

...TBC...


	3. Chapter 3

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name. Plus, there's lyrics, of course, and a possibly obscure reference to a punk band. Also thank **pwcorgigirl** for her comments that helped make this a little easier to process and read.

**Summary:** "...Is there any wound you just can't heal? Tell me your principles, your drive to help people, to heal...mean more to you than some whale of--wait," he paused and grimaced. "That's an insult to whales. More than some smug asshole's hundred million dollars. Tell me there's something you would lie for. Is there?"

**Rating:** If you're still reading and haven't yet guessed the rating, then I worry. If you're just starting out, I'll give you a hint. There is panting and hard clutching. Figure it out. If you are offended by those little tidbits, then this fic certainly isn't for you.

**Note:** If any of you paid close attention during Half-Blood Prince (or have easy access to your copy), then you'll know what potion House is brewing. Reviews are always encouraged and appreciated.

_...Is this more than you bargained for, yeah -- oh, don't mind me, I'm watching you two from the closet...Wishing to be the friction in your jeans..._

He remembers when he first told each of them. Wilson had believed House was perpetrating the prank of all pranks -- had given him commendations for consistency and commitment. Then House had pulled out his wand and turned Wilson's coffee cup into a fluffy bunny rabbit with a large egg shaped black spot on its back.

Wilson had stared, mouth gaping until House started counting the flies landing in it. They'd given the rabbit to Lisa's niece and pretended he came from a farm upstate.

After that, he had been privy to furtive looks of wonder and, eventually, a seemingly resigned acceptance to the fact that there were books on the shelves containing illustrations that rivaled the best film. That nearly every animal he'd been told as a child was a figment of his dreams and an overactive imagination (and many he'd never dreamed of -- he'd stared at the fifty-fourth edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, goggling at all the animals he couldn't believe existed.

House, himself, was partial to Thestrals for reasons none of them had yet to understand) was kept in check by something called **The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures** and that a little tidbit or two of history from House may include the fact that in 1932, a real, live, very hungry Welsh Green dragon attacked a beach full of sunbathers in Ilfracombe, Devon, England. That a vacationing family of wizards saved the entire Muggle population present that day from becoming its dinner before casting the largest batch of Memory Modification charms on record. According to Newt Scamander's book, they'd been amply rewarded by the British Ministry of Magic with something called the Order of Merlin.

Sometimes a large barn owl would come flying through the (always open -- thanks to a waterproofing charm -- in the spring and summer, meticulously timed in the autumn and winter) window bearing a tightly furled piece of yellowed paper that resembled the ancient medical texts he'd examined on microfilm in college. Letters from Blythe House, he'd later learned. She was a witch, like her son was a wizard.

Eventually, it just became another nuance. Like how House's favorite color was a shade of blue different from Cuddy's eyes by a number of degrees. Like how every year for a while House drank a little more, swallowed an extra Vicodin or two, died a little more inside. Until the collapse, Wilson had watched, seemingly helpless, as the cycle of vague yet always and undeniably present pain exacerbated the already cruel threshold Greg (and Jimmy and Lisa) was forced to cross.

At least there had always been a way to try to help him forget. He knows, now, that House hates depending on drugs to simply feel...normal. He may have gone to school in the seventies, when drug use was practically a to-do list of self-inflicted debauchery, but he hadn't joined in any of it. Wilson later learned that there was too much 'outside interference' (House's words, not his -- he didn't seem able to define mass murder in such insignificant terms) to be idiotic enough to purposely dull one's senses. You wound up the occupant of a coffin that way. He had always assumed that House had just been one of the many who did it just because he could. He was never so surprised (and relieved) to be wrong. He knows, now, that happiness (and love) in and of itself, is a drug to House. More powerful than any government-grown strain of marijuana. More powerful than meperidine or hydrocodone or methylenedioxymethamphetamine or morphine or ethanol. Better than food or video games. It was the simple act of getting to do those things, of watching Steve McQueen running around in his little orange exercise ball at one forty-five in the morning. It was not having to leave work early, not having to call in sick because he couldn't get out of bed and into the shower. It was in bickering with Lisa, reciprocal mockery with Jimmy. That was heaven.

"Happiness..." Greg once told him, breathing deeply as Jimmy's arms circled his back and they drifted in that strange, comfortable aura of sleeping wakefulness one Tuesday summer morning. "Should be bottled and sold by the Food and Drug Administration. Behind the counter at the pharmacy. Where all the other 'good shit' is. It should be illegal. Probably already is. Helpless giggling should be given a narcotic rating and monitored regularly by properly-trained professionals."

He knows House probably really does believe that. For some reason, the thought only makes him smile.

***

Cuddy had, as usual, been miles more subtle in her reaction. She had asked for proof and House had provided, conjuring a blue and bronze striped scarf -- it had been snowstorming in Ann Arbor and Cuddy had left hers in a cab -- and wrapped it gently around her throat. She had asked what he was doing here, in the regular world -- or what passed for it -- if he had a whole other one he was free to enjoy. His face had fallen, then, and he had turned away from her.

"Trying to forget," he'd said softly, slipping his wand back up his sleeve into the holster she now knew was always there. "Operative words..." he'd added in a heavy voice, pressing his hand against the coldness of the glass window he'd ended up in front of. He'd given her full-run of his books and she'd read them with a scholar's eye, mystified and bitter at what she'd never be able to use herself. She did, however, let him brew her a potion to increase her concentration. He had murmured that he had last drank some during his final examinations his fifth and seventh years. It took him six years to tell her where those examinations had taken place. Eight to find out what any of his scores had been.

Apparently, twelve Ordinary Wizarding Levels (let alone Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests) was quite the accomplishment from the effusive reaction Blythe had given when Greg had (begrudgingly) shown Lisa the old letters declaring his results the winter after Cuddy had promoted him and given him his department. He'd gripped his cane and stared at the blue and bronze prefect badge with his name engraved under a crest reflecting a lion, serpent, badger, and raven surrounding a large, ornate letter 'H.'

Sometimes she wanted to ask him what he missed most. Most of the time, though, she was afraid to remind him.

***

_Is it still me that makes you sweat?...Am I who you think about in bed?...When the lights are dim and your hands are shaking as you're sliding off your dress..._

**1976**

"You're ruining my reputation, you know. Dirtying me all up. Regulus Arcturus Black, you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Yes, but you don't care -- and are you really planning to complain about that? Just now?"

"P -- " He felt his voice hitch as Regulus' teeth nipped his ear. "Perhaps not."

"Didn't think so. Besides, you like being dirty."

"You hate to be clean."

"Takes all the -- " Regulus has shifted. "Fun out of life."

Erections could be trouble sometimes, of that he was now quite certain. Regret, too, was a problem. He is reasonably worried that suffering both at the same time might (maybe, possibly could, probably will) be dangerous to his health. It's a little difficult to concentrate on the latter, though, when the former is so clearly being encouraged.

"You're a cheeky one," he tries to smirk as Regulus' thumb brushes over his head, sending a sharp throb coursing through him and pulling a groan from somewhere near his diaphragm.

"Hypocrite. And you like me when I'm cheeky," Regulus murmurs, his other hand coming to slide into the undone fly of Greg's jeans and grip the older boy's waist to pull him closer. Lips and teeth raise little patterns in the skin of his throat and Greg thinks he might fall apart. If this was what panicking feels like, he figures, then he will happily do so for the rest of his life.

"You're damned lucky," Greg growls, moaning as Regulus' hand begins a slow stroke that threatens to send him crashing to the floor.

"You don't believe in luck," Regulus reminds him, stepping back and dropping to his knees. Greg reaches up without thought and tangles his hands in Regulus' hair as a marvelous combination of heat and wetness claims him. He thrusts in earnest, no longer aware or even caring if what he says makes any sort of sense. Faintly, he registers Regulus' words and the change of sensation as hands replace that mouth. "Now, shut up, will you? You asked for a distraction, you bastard, and you're getting a damned good one. Be thankful."

A strangled sort of gasp escapes him as he ejaculates, hard and fast, most of the slurry that results disappearing and whatever's left warming around his cock. Regulus leans into him, thrusting back, his own pace quickening as his mouth comes to connect with Greg's. It's an interesting feeling, tasting himself on Regulus' tongue -- one he has yet to fully get used to. He can, he decides, as he lets his own hand guide itself along the length pushing insistently against his stomach. Regulus' own more restrained groan and subsequent shudder are the only warning he's given before Regulus comes, as well, and they fall against one another in a sated, sticky daze. He'll need a shower later. He doesn't care.

It's a moment before a small, hitching whimper sounds nearby and both Regulus Black and Gregory House look over to find a flushed and embarrassed Lily Evans staring at them, eyes wide. Regulus leans back against the wall, that damnable grin still in place as Greg yanks his trousers back up, a mortified blush of his own forming despite his best intention.

Lily's hair is all he sees next as she dashes away and that night as he's idling in his four-poster, he takes the time to imagine what could have happened if she'd stayed.

_Taking more than one deep breath, Greg manages to get himself together enough to shuffle back over to her side, leaning over her and gently slowing her hand. Her irritated expression alone would be enough to make him hard again if he wasn't so obviously spent. He decides the least he can do is help her along. Stilling her hand altogether, he lets his trousers fall back down before sliding them and his boxer shorts the rest of the way off. Removing his shirt, as well, it falls to the floor and he moves to hover over her, watching -- completely mesmerized -- as the dark heat surrounded by soft flame sends another shudder rolling over him._

_But he's not that considerate, he knows, and he takes the time to smile. "Say please," he orders, his hand coming to barely slide over her. Lily blinks at him for a moment before growling, "You sodding Yank -- " she begins, but Greg breaks off her burgeoning tirade with a kiss and it morphs into a moan._

_"Now, now, that's not very nice," Regulus admonishes behind them (apparently not giving a damn that he's hanging half out of his trousers, a drunken, lecherous expression on his face), and Greg nods in agreement. "Greg was only trying to help."_

_Lily's moan is all the answer she can seem to give as Greg's fingers dance around her entrance, harkening permission but never accepting. "Please," she whispers, breathless and slick beneath him and Greg smiles. "Now, was that so difficult?"_

_But before she can answer, his face disappears from her line of vision and she looks down to see the back of brown hair and pale neck as she hooks her legs around his shoulders, her head falling back against the sheets._

He bites back a moan and thrusts into his sweaty palm, trying not to wake anyone around. It's all he can do not to scream.

***

Lisa does scream, hard and long, as Jimmy fucks her against the (once cold, now quite warm) wooden headboard of Greg's bed, her hair falling around his shoulders. Greg is buried to the hilt behind them, pressed flat against Jimmy's back, his hands gripping both Lisa's and Jimmy's waists hard enough to leave bruises. He loves the marks he puts on them. Adores the silk scarves and starched-collar shirts they wear to hide them. Sometimes the thought of it's enough to make him kick the kids out of his office so he can have a little alone time with the blinds closed. Wilson caught him once and sMuggled him downstairs, then gasped into the fabric of Cuddy's chair as they put her soundproofed office to good use. It was a glorious ending to Paperfest 2007 and the expression on Lisa's face when she woke up on her couch and caught them at it only added to the fun. It hadn't been that ardous an effort to get her to come around to their line of thinking. He still remembers the way the steel handles of her desk drawers dug so sharply into his back. Some kinds of pain can be good, he's learned.

But then he will have nightmares and wake up gasping names and places and strange words that once shot a line of fire clear across the room. He had calmly extinguished and repaired her drapes before going to make himself a pungent concoction of some sort on the stove. It smelled like bleach and she was worried what he was thinking. She tried to read the labels on the vials, tried to figure out what they contained, but they were written in languages she didn't speak -- some of them, she was convinced, weren't even human. She'd finally mustered up the courage to ask him about his 'cooking' the night after Vogler left, when she found him in the lab, having hijacked a Bunsen burner and set up a miniature Potions lab.

He carried magical tools everywhere with him, she'd discovered, even if he didn't like to use them. A lifetime's worth of being trained in the art of advanced preparation didn't abate simply because one had issues (continually renewed subscriptions, really) with their past. He even kept a collapsible cauldron in his office closet. She had wondered why he didn't use it now.

"A melted cauldron -- or one at all, actually -- would be hard to explain to a lab tech, don't you think?" House had asked softly, not looking up from measuring what looked like crushed insect shells of some sort with a pocket-sized set of scales. She'd nodded wearily, wishing she'd had more champagne. "So. Ms. Buzzkill -- what brings you here?"

She'd thought he was one to talk about killing any buzzes, but again decided to let it go. "I wondered where you'd disappeared off to. I didn't hear any loud cracking noises, so I figured I had a little time. That left your favorite hiding places, and -- by the way -- I really don't think it's a good idea to court sexual harassment charges yet _again_ by continuing to hide in the third-floor womens' bathroom."

"No one ever uses it."

"That would be because you've hung that 'Out of Order' sign on the door. I keep telling maintenance to take it down, but they tell me they can't get it off the door. You wouldn't have anything to do with that, now, would you?"

He hadn't answered, opting instead to decrease the heat on the Bunsen burner so that whatever sweet-smelling thing (it resembled the cinnamon rolls she liked to buy on the weekends) he was percolating stopped boiling. He removed a tiny packet of strange-looking beans before reaching again into his jacket, now having produced a silver scapel she immediately recognized as the one Jimmy gave Greg for Chrismukkah the previous year. He removed the plastic cover of the tip and used the side of the blade to crush the beans in his hands. They immediately released a gush of liquid -- so much that Cuddy couldn't understand how a tiny bean could hold that much -- and the potion turned a pale shade of lilac. For the next half-hour, she watched as he stirred it counter-clockwise, while adding a clockwise stir every seventh counter-clockwise stir. Eventually the potion turned completely clear.

She'd taken an annoyed breath, sick of him and his games for one day. "What are you doing?" she asked in a tired, irritated tone that he paid no outward attention to.

"Potion-making," was House's succinct reply.

"Yeah, I'd figured," she sighed, now anxious for some reason. House rarely ever mentioned actually _doing_ magic, let alone been so abrupt about it. It was one of the rare subjects he would never elaborate on, instead relying on concrete 'yes or no' answers that never acknowledged anything. It was maddening at the best of times, but horribly so now.

"So, what? Ordinary, Muggle-made catastrophes and explosions aren't good enough for you anymore?"

He gripped the counter, then, leaning down carefully to stare into the flames under the burner without causing himself further pain. "Would you have really sacrificed me, if it came down to it?"

She stared at him, astonished that he would ask such a thing when she'd so clearly just proved otherwise. "I...just -- GAVE UP ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS FOR YOU! You have your damned answer!"

She hadn't expected to scream like that. He seemed to, though, because he didn't react at all except to dip a ladle into his simmering potion and tipping a measured amount into a nearby glass vial before stoppering the top. "I don't give a damn about money, Cuddy, you of all people know that." His voice and eyes were hard now and she wanted to walk over and simply strangle him.

"Does it ever get to you?" he asked, then, and she was shocked at the profound exhaustion and anger she heard in his tone. "Is there ever a time where you wish you could just...erase your existence? Is there any wound you just can't heal? Tell me your principles, your drive to help people, to heal...mean more to you than some whale of -- wait," he paused and grimaced. "That's an insult to whales. More than some smug asshole's hundred million dollars. Tell me there's something you would lie for. Is there?"

She'd continued staring at him, a blank sort of fuzz flowing through her head. After a few moments grappling, she sighed. "I don't know how you expect me to answer that."

He'd sighed, then, raising the vial to the fluorescent lighting above their heads and tipping the vial back and forth so that the water-like solution sloshed like one of those therapeutic toys that psychiatrists kept in their offices. _Escape plan. Dillinger not included._

"Let me know when you do," he's said quietly. And then he'd left her alone.

_...You can have my isolation...You can have the hate that it brings...You can have my absence of faith...You can have my everything..._

...TBC...


	4. Chapter 4

Re

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name. Plus, there's lyrics, of course, a partial quote from _Dogma_, and another quote from Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Oh, yeah, and remember that part this season where they dabbled into why House doesn't use his cane in his left hand? Yeah, forget that ever happened. Although, considering this story forgets that the entire third season ever happened, I guess that'd be a given...

**Summary:** Then it suddenly hits John and he remembers what Gregory had said that had so enraged him. _"You're aware what my job means. What that means for this family."_

And Gregory John Christopher House had laughed, bitterness and sarcasm in that voice his father (John Christopher) hadn't known the boy could achieve. _"I am aware. I just don't care."_

**Rating:** Yesterday was Smut Tuesday at **housecuddy**. That's all you need to know.

Reviews are always encouraged and much appreciated.

**Note: NOW DH-COMPLIANT!**

_...I see you lying next to me...With words I thought I'd never speak...Awake and unafraid...Asleep or dead..._

It's difficult to think about the past and he tries not to. It's easiest when he's listening to Jimmy humming while cooking dinner. When he's half-heartedly (albeit soundly) trouncing Cuddy at Jeopardy. It gets sketchy when he's listening as Lisa's moans mingle with Jimmy's gasps and sooner than later they're all a sticky mess. He fucks with his eyes open because he doesn't want to forget, wants to know where and what he is and to understand the same for them. _Needs_ to know. Sometimes he gets desperate and the world widens in a nightmarish fashion. Sometimes, he can't see or think past the feelings threatening to tear him apart. He needs them, he knows, and wonders why they seem to need him, too.

He's afraid to ask, however, the very thought making his throat constrict painfully and reminding him of the anaphylactic shock he experienced that horrible summer when he couldn't decide whether he even wanted to die or not. If Jimmy had been a little slower in noticing his reaction to the TPN mixture, he wouldn't be here now. He's confused about what to feel about that now and again. He thinks they might know because Jimmy's lips on his temple and Lisa's hand on his neck keep him breathing and conscious. They won't let him drown, he's sure.

He hasn't always believed and they worry he'll forget. He's hates it when he gets like this because it isn't like he can reassure them. He doesn't have the confidence to answer when he doesn't get it himself.

**1981**

John House stands in front of the closed door. He regrets the marks the crowbar has left on the wood--he'll have to pay to have it repaired, himself--but the situation calling for drastic action still hasn't been resolved and he feels he needs to regain control of Greg somehow. He listens with distinct dread to the sounds of the crashes and shattering of glass that plainly shows the boy is destroying the room before John as thoroughly as the explosion of emotion seemingly engulfing him. He hasn't said a word, Greg, in over twelve hours. He'd screamed at first, when his mother had tried to prod him into the guest bedroom here at their current housing assignment. Blythe had ducked as Greg thrashed and threw himself away from her, slamming the door shut and proceeding to tear the room apart. Blythe has been in the kitchen for hours now, brewing some damned thing she insists is the only way to calm Greg down. That's assuming, of course, they'll be able to get close enough to restrain him. He doesn't think that magic will work this time. He knows that Blythe refuses to use any spells to restrain Greg. That it's inhumane and barbaric. John believes, however, that sometimes force is necessary. The crowbar didn't get the door open and Blythe said that Greg must have locked it with magic, still being in possession of his wand if not his senses.

Absentmindedly, his fingers brush over the faint burn scar on the back of his right hand and unbidden, a memory of when Greg was thirteen flashes through his head.

_The boy had been getting mouthier with every passing year and seemed to think that his Bar Mitzvah eleven months earlier meant that he was a real man and had the right to get things his way and say what he wanted. John had received a transfer out of England to Japan and that meant Greg was going to have to leave the school he'd been attending for the previous three and a half years. It was the same as last time but, apparently, Greg hadn't seen it that way. John can't remember, exactly, what Gregory had said--only that it had been disrespectful and completely unacceptable. His reaction had been swift and uncontrolled. The next thing he remembers is Greg lying, unconscious and bleeding, against the wall of his bedroom. There was blood down the front of his shirt, his nose was broken. The door had been open and sometime after whatever had happened, Blythe had appeared in the doorway, her wand out, and had rushed to Greg's side._

_"You need to leave," she'd told John, not looking at him. Her wand was moving over and around Greg's face, making the blood on his skin and clothing disappear. The flow had stopped, but the nose itself was still a crooked mess with a small gash on the side. John stood there and stared as Blythe tended to the insolent little bastard, completely ignoring what he'd done in the first place._

_"He--"_

_"Leave. Now!" Blythe had hissed, turning more quickly than he'd thought possible and a thin line of white flame lashed out and caught him on the back of his hand. He'd gasped and stared at her (a chill falling over him at the anger and ferocity he saw in her eyes), clutching his hand to his chest. He'd left then, mindlessly going to the car and throwing himself in the driver's seat, staring at the burn on his hand. He'd needed to go to the infirmary to get patched up. He'd lied and said it was from a training accident. The base ENT had examined his hand, declared the slash a second degree burn, and given him ointment and a wrap to help keep it sterile. He'd come home that night to find Greg sitting in his pajamas at his desk, doing an essay or whatever on some of that damned parchment with a quill and ink. His nose, it seemed, had been mended by Blythe. John had fumed and stalked into the kitchen to find an empty place setting where his dinner usually sat at this time._

_The plate was bare, his glass likewise unfilled. Suddenly, though, he saw the tip of Blythe's wand pointed directly at his heart._

_"I don't care what he tells you, you will never attack my son again, do you understand?" Her voice was hard and cold; her eyes even moreso. "You're telling him he'll have to leave Hogwarts for somewhere new, again. He's tired of it. He has the right to be weary of always having to pick up and leave. It's the middle of the year, Christmas holidays, almost his birthday--though you've never been bothered about that...too close to your precious Christmas, of course, and Chanukah be damned--" And here, she grips the edge of the table hard enough that they both hear it creak. Blythe breathes deeply and manages to continue. "He's going to miss the remainder of his third year and he's just started his electives. The only way he'll be able to continue is through correspondence between myself and the Hogwarts staff because the Matamori School doesn't accept students in the middle of term. No wizarding school does."_

_"Sacrifices--"_

_"I'm talking," Blythe had snapped, somehow managing to do so without changing the timbre of her voice. She reached down and picked up the hand she had burned earlier. Her hold was gentle, firm, but John could see in her eyes that a part of her seemed to want to break his wrist. To shatter it like he'd apparently done to Gregory._

_"You're in my head," John whispered, fear threading through his veins at the control his wife was wielding over him and the cascade of memories he tried so desperately to ignore. He'd hated it with every fiber of his being. His brother kicking him._ Greg...Gregory, please-- _His father, Christopher, dunking his head into the latrine, ignoring his pleas for mercy. John shivered again, a sob on the edge of his tongue, but he managed to hold it back. _You little pussy...Little shit...This'll learn you...

_"I don't know who you think you are, but you will _never_ lay a hand to my son ever again, for any reason. I don't _care_ what you think he deserves. He is not a toy for you to break."_

_She had moved the wand to let it hover between his eyes and his breath had hitched in his chest. "I love you and you love me. We both love Gregory even if you can't seem to understand exactly what that means. If you touch him again, however, we're gone. It'll be a nice adventure trying to find a wife and son you have no recollection of, I assure you. Memory Modification spells can be very far-reaching indeed. You hurt him again and there isn't anything in this world that will save you. You talk about us making sacrifices. Perhaps it's time you made one. I won't let you destroy him the way they did you."_

John suddenly registers that the noises behind Gregory's door have stopped. There is an eerie quiet pervading the entire house. Blythe had done some complicated thing earlier that she said ensures that no one hear or sees anything that goes on. She appears beside him, carrying a steaming mug of whatever she's been brewing. Holding the mug with one hand, she raises her wand with a flick and whispers, "Alohomora," at the locked door before them. The door creaks open and Gregory's crumpled, shivering body lies on the floor, his beautiful hands bloody and mangled. John feels his breath hitch in his throat at the utter damage Gregory has managed to do over the course of a few hours. The only things not broken in the room are the windows, though John feels a sick drop in his stomach as he realizes it wasn't for lack of trying. Gregory's blood is smeared over them in obvious attempts to smash them open. The mirror inside his wardrobe, however, hadn't been quite so fortunate and is lying shattered around Gregory's bleeding, scratched, unconscious form. Blythe had retrieved him from St. Mungo's herself, being told of the bone repair they'd had to do and that most of it had been fractures and minor breaks of his arms and right hand. His left shoulder, however, which now lies at an unnatural angle to his side, was still healing and now the prescription potions Gregory had been sent home with weren't going to alleviate all the damage, let alone the fresh injuries. Of that, she is certain.

To this day, he cannot carry his body weight on that weakened left shoulder.

Then it suddenly hits John and he remembers what Gregory had said that had so enraged him. _"You're aware what my job means. What that means for this family."_

And Gregory John Christopher House had laughed, bitterness and sarcasm in that voice his father (John Christopher) hadn't known the boy could achieve. _"I am aware. I just don't care."_

And he'd stared for a moment, astonishment giving to rage, and the rest had followed. And he'd never touched Gregory again.

**December, 1973**

_...I never said I'd lie and wait forever...If I did, we'd be together now...I can't always just forget her, but she could try..._

The next day Blythe packed Gregory a duffle bag and Side-Along Apparated with him to the Evans residence in Manchester, a letter from her both to him as well as to Lily's parents clutched in each of his hands. He still has the letter, along with others, sitting in that box with his ties.

_Dear Greg,_

_I'm certain there's no way to conceal from you what your father did last night, as it happened to you and not myself, but I promise you that it will never happen again, under any circumstances. I give you my word that your father will never do anything like that to you again, for any reason, and that he will regret it if he tries._

_As it is, I think it's best that the two of you spend some time apart while you get yourselves sorted out and we prepare for this move. I know it's the last thing you want to do, as you're not certain what impact it will have on your course schedule or, indeed, your ambitions. I will make absolutely certain we do everything we can to keep you in-step with your schoolmates and that you graduate on time and finish whatever training you take up. In the meantime, Lily's parents have made it clear they'd be happy to let you stay a few weeks so that you can spend a little more time with her. I've included our new address in case she decides to send Muggle post, which shouldn't be difficult as she's a Muggleborn. The post owls won't be a problem, of course, but it would help to look as Muggle-like as possible so as not to arouse suspicions of any sort._

_What I want is for you and Lily to have fun and make the most of your time together. I've packed a camera in your bag so that you can have pictures of her when we're back in Japan. I know you'll enjoy being back there, as it's not the country that bothers you but the fact that you'll be separated from your friends and unable to attend Matamori in the meantime. I've arranged it with Headmaster Dumbledore and your Masters so that you can do independent study as you've done in the past for your Muggle classes until the fall term and attend Matamori afterward. When the time comes, you'll be able to sit your O. and N.E.W.T.s, as well as learn to Apparate when it's time to earn your license. I'm going to go into Diagon Alley today and get your schoolbooks and whatever extras you will need for the coming years, as well as starting you a separate account at Gringott's for your finances. It will also be made clear that whatever Muggle money you wish to keep in your vault will be protected as well and, should you so desire, be available for direct deposit for whatever you need._

_That said, have fun and behave yourself. That means not cursing Lily's sister, whatever she says to you. Is that understood, young man? The Statute of Secrecy does still apply to you, whatever you may want to believe. This is not, by any means, that sort of 'emergency circumstance,' so don't even try it. BE GOOD._

_Love, Mom._

"We're happy to have you here, Greg, so just make yourself at home, dear." After Blythe had hugged Greg goodbye and spoken with the Evanses, Lily's mother had insisted on taking his coat and hanging it up by the doorway with the others. His boots were lined up beside the pile next to the kitchen door. He was wearing his uniform tie and a light blue shirt because his mother said he should look nice and because it was likely the last time he'd be able to wear it for a while so he acquiesced with only a half-hearted protest.

Blythe had smiled and hugged him, telling him he would always be a Ravenclaw, whatever school he went to. Always be a wizard, wherever they were. He had hugged her back, managing to ignore the tears he could feel on his neck. He was taller than her by now, and she had to reach up to hug him. He didn't care.

Lily was bouncing down the stairs wearing a jumper Greg had never seen before. It was new, bright Christmas red, and clashed horribly with her hair, but she didn't care and neither did he. She was beautiful in it. She giggled and handed him a box of Ice Mice as a hello and told him to come with her and have some lunch. Her mother had made chicken salad sandwiches for them and she insisted they tasted better than anything in the universe.

"All kids say that about their mum's cooking," he smiled at her. "There's really no winner there. There can't be."

"Yeah, well, in this house, there is." She stuck her tongue out at him and he'd laughed.

"My mum sent some stuff, too," he told her, opening the wrapped bundle he carried in his hands. A warming charm had kept it from needing to be reheated.

"Then we'll combine the two and have a nice feast," Mrs. Evans had declared, taking the package and unwrapping it. Gregory's favorite four-cheese and tomato paninis (he'd loved the places they'd lived for the food and the sights and Blythe always remembered his favorites), vegetarian pad thai with sesame seeds, as well as sunflower seeds and raisins she'd added herself. Hot chocolate because it was cold outside and he didn't like tea as much as she did.

"Wow," Lily had whispered, surprised at the amount of food Blythe had sent along. "What's all this?"

"Paninis, pad thai, and hot chocolate," Greg had murmured. "We've lived lots of places. My mum likes to cook lots of different things. Plus, we don't eat a lot of meat. My dad does, more than my mum and I."

"She should be a chef," Lily told him, taking the large plate and setting it in the middle of the table. Greg tried to go help but Mr. Evans stopped him. "Greg, you're a guest and you're hungry. Sit down and rest. You look dead tired."

It was true that he and his mother had woken up a few hours early so that she could pack his bag and make him food. He hadn't been able to sleep anyway and hardly minded. He hadn't realized until after they left that he hadn't taken a deep breath in nearly twelve hours that he could remember. He wished he didn't remember at all.

Greg shook his head and tried to smile a little as Lily's mother placed a heaping plate with one of his mother's sandwiches, one of hers, a hard-boiled egg, and some hot chocolate in front of him with a gentle nudge to eat. He took a tentative bite and felt some of the tension ease. His mother's cooking was delicious, but so was Mrs. Evans'. There was no winner, no competition, and that made him feel better than anything else.

Petunia Evans had joined them after a few minutes and she had stopped in the doorway, staring at Greg with accusatory grey eyes so unlike Regulus' it was difficult to believe they were the same color.

"He's here," she'd said, a disdainful little tone in her voice and Greg had fought not to frown.

"Petunia," Lily had hissed, glaring at her older sister and glancing at Greg, clearly expecting him to be offended. His face, however, was more amused than anything else. That dangerous little smirk he got when he was going to say something he wasn't going to regret was there and Lily wasn't sure whether or not she should intervene. He could take care of himself, she knew, just as Regulus and Severus could.

"Don't worry, I won't curse you. I have better things to do," he'd said, and Petunia had frowned before marching over to the kitchen counter and pouring herself a cup of juice.

"Petunia, aren't you going to welcome our guest?" Mr. Evans had asked, indignation coloring his tone.

"Hello," Petunia had said, her tone flat and clipped. Greg had raised an eyebrow, the smirk on his face becoming a grin.

"You know, hemorrhoids can be treated, given the proper time and medication, and if they're detected early enough, you might not even need surgery. And that pesky anal bleed will clear itself right up, so there's no need to be so downhearted."

Petunia had choked on her juice then, and Lily had gasped and smacked Greg on the shoulder. Her parents had stared for a moment, blinking.

"Just kidding," he'd smirked, feeling better already as Petunia tried to mop up the juice she'd spat all over herself and the counter.

"You want to be a doctor," Mr. Evans had stated, and Greg could see from his memories that he was one, already. "What specialty?" He was trying not to laugh, himself, and Greg felt even better. Mrs. Evans sighed and went to help Petunia with her shirt, whispering something Greg couldn't hear in her ear.

"I don't know yet, sir. Maybe infectious disease or something. But if I went that route, I think I'd really like to be a mediwizard, so there'll probably be more magical accidents to fix than anything like cancer or pneumonia. I'm not really certain yet. I'm still thinking of other ideas."

Dr. Evans had grinned then, and promised to give him some of his old medical textbooks to take to Japan. "When you're ready, I'll send you whatever updated editions you want. Maybe wizards can use something we have, if they like."

Greg had smiled and thanked him, meaning it, wondering if he could figure out a way to do that himself, and settled down to finish the rest of his meal. Afterward, Mrs. Evans had shown him the guest room and he'd mostly slept until dinnertime. When he'd woken up sometime in the mid-afternoon, Lily had curled up in the corner of his room, reading one of the texts he'd been given by her father. He'd smiled for the first time in so long and gone back to sleep.

**1981**

_...I am bottled, fizzy water and you are shaking me up...You are a fingernail running down the chalkboard I thought I left in third grade...Now my only consolation is that this will not last forever, even though you're singing and thinking how 'well' you've got it made..._

He pulls listlessly, uselessly at the restraints tethering him to this bed. His right arm is loose, wrapped at the wrist in a padded strap. His fingers, though, are in splints. The left is pinned under another larger blue strap that circles his entire chest and holds his arm down so it cannot be moved at all. His legs are bound at the ankles. He tries to care, but can't seem to get enough effort (courage) to do so. Around him, colors and lights are too bright, sounds too loud. It had been like this before, but he'd been able to ignore it. Now sensation pours over him like the cruelty of water-boarding and, like the poor son of a bitch being victimized, all he can do was lie there and take it. The helplessness slashes at him, taking greedy bites out of his soul and spitting whatever refuse it has left back into his face.

Somewhere, broken fragments of memory float past his mind. Colors swim in his vision, blooming and wilting like flowers weighed down. He tries again to move and can't. Something...someone is speaking to him. He tries to focus on the sound, concentrating on the colors they create. He recognizes them. F sharp, medium blue. A piano. There was...a piano?

Scarlet...A. "Yes, Greg, that's right. A." His little boy voice saying 'A.' Continuing onward through the rest of the alphabet and leaving the musical scales in his dust.

_W, X, Y, and Z...Now, I know my ABC's, next time, won't you sing with me?_ His mother laughing and then a long cascade of notes.

"I love you, my dear, dear, only boy." A whispered voice lingers in his ear and he finally registers a hand tenderly grasping his own. His hand starts to tingle in that deeply unpleasant way it does when he is held for too long and he tries to move away. He can't. He's just so...tired. He gives up, then, exhaustion and confusion taking his choice away as something...someone in white comes over and does something else over his head. His eyes slide shut and there is no more pain. The comforting voice is gone, too, now. The colors muted and their shadows swimming past the insides of his eyelids.

Then he doesn't remember anything anymore for a long time.

_...I wish we could open our eyes...To see in all directions at the same time...Oh, what a beautiful view...If you were never aware of what was around you...And it is true what you said...That I live like a hermit in my own head...But if the sun shines again...I'll pull the curtains and blinds and let the light in..._

"You don't speak very much, do you, Mr. House?" Was that a question? The answer should be obvious.

_Doctor,_ he thinks mutinously. _Healer._ Then he remembers and his heart splits in two. _Breaker._ Lily's eyes open, staring blankly into space. James's glasses, broken and flung into a far corner of the room, covered in dust by the time he'd got there. And Harry...

"You won't sign the--"

"Suicide pact?" he snarls, his voice hoarse. He'd screamed the night before, so loudly and so long that hours later, he still can't say much; certainly not for long. He pulls listlessly at the scrubs he's dressed in. Red. The same for every other screwball in this place, wherever here is.

"Not a pact. A pledge--"

"If you idiots are too slow, then it's a pact. Telling some nurse I'm going to kill myself won't do shit. Not if I'm quicker than she is." He thinks about the nurses and how some of them were old and some of them were overweight. "I'm quicker than a lot of them."

He can only whisper, but he makes it count.

"Are you planning to kill yourself? Is that what you want to do?"

_Something you entertain...Entertaining death. Sounds like a movie. Or an unwanted guest, too stupid to take a hint and leave._

"Trying to make me feel guilty? It's not like I'd care. I'd be dead. So it goes."

_You brought this on yourself, son..._

He blinks. His father was the one who'd brought him here. John House had let his mother give him a Calming Draught after they'd found him and then everything was undefined, indistinct. He remembers her hand on his and then nothing. His father brought him here.

"I'm just trying to understand." The shrink is a woman with grey eyes like Regulus and Severus. He wonders if they turn black when she gets angry. Red hair like Lily's. God is laughing at him, has to be.

"Good fucking luck," he whispers and then he thinks about the petals on the hibiscus trees in Okinawa. The way they flutter in only a little bit of breeze, fly in a gale. And he can forget.

His left arm is strapped securely to his chest, suspended in a padded sling. It twinges if he moves it too far in any direction, but mostly he ignores it. Except at night when he sees them, sees their blood. He hasn't slept without drugs in...long. He doesn't remember what day it is, what month. But he won't ask. If he doesn't ask, then he can hide all the better. He has to hide. It was the only way to..._make it all not true._ He can live again, maybe, if it isn't true.

_...I've become so numb, I can't feel you there...Become so tired, so much more aware..._

...TBC...


	5. Chapter 5

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name. Plus, there's lyrics, of course, and probably other stuff I haven't thought up yet. Also, I have only the vaguest idea of how adoption proceedings go, but from what I do know, they're frustrating as hell. I'll do my best. Partial quote from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

**Summary:** "Shut up, House," Jimmy and Lisa interject simultaneously, but he doesn't even falter. He expects them to try to shut him up and they expect him to ignore them. Comfortable patterns.

**Rating: M**, which you must surely know by now.

**Pairings, etc.** For this particular chapter, it seems necessary. House/Cuddy/Wilson and all that that implies; James/Lily; Gregory House/Regulus Black; Harry/Luna/Neville points upward;

**Notes:** Special thanks to **leiascully**, **gahdzuks**, and **silja b** for their respective parts in making sure this made legal, logistical, and logical sense. Wouldn't want the Triumvirate to pull any muscles or anything nasty like that. It'd be a little difficult to hide from the rest of the staff... Also, the term 'septic' refers to 'septic tank,' which **silja b** tells me is Cockney Rhyming Slang for 'Yank.' I feel so flattered.

Reviews are always encouraged and much appreciated.

_It's losing all my friends...It's losing them to drinking and to driving...Losing all my friends, but I got them back...I am not a man...At least now I can say that I am trying...But I hope you will forget things I still lack..._

"So what's brought this on?" Jimmy's hand is tangling itself in Lisa's hair and they're both watching him. It's after midnight and the blinds are (always) drawn when they're together, especially at night. They're in Cuddy's office and Wilson's 'sure-fire' plan to distract House from the paperwork Cuddy had to do backfired in the worst way, but not until she was more than halfway done, so it wasn't a complete loss. He'll still be doing House's clinic hours for the week, but it's a sacrifice he's willing to make. House's long legs are propped up on the couch next to them and he's lying on his back on the floor, twirling his wand and his cane in each of his hands and somehow managing to thwart disaster.

Greg shrugs and stares at the ceiling some more, a deep breath pulling itself from inside before he realizes it.

"Something's going on with you," Lisa says and her voice is soft, careful. She knows he won't tell until he's good and ready (sometimes, on some things, he never is but that's okay) and that pushing and wheedling him only courts further distance.

"You two have stating the obvious down pat," he murmurs, his eyes sliding shut. He wishes he had his iPod. He wishes Cuddy would leave so he could Summon the scotch he knows she keeps in the closet behind her desk but she knows he knows where it is and what's the point of secrecy if your plans are laid bare? Hm. Bare. He wishes Jimmy was naked.

Hm. Naked Jimmy. Interesting, idling thought.

"I'm oversexed," he says and Jimmy chokes on the sip of tepid coffee he'd been taking.

"Figured that out, did you?" Lisa asks, but she's grinning with satisfaction and Greg knows she loves the fact that they keep him that way.

"You certainly don't mind," Greg sighs and Lisa chuckles to herself and she can practically see the words forming before they're out of his mouth.

"If you were that easy, you'd've slept with half the doctors on staff. It's Jimmy's job to be the Hospital Whore--I doubt he'd appreciate being overthrown. And then there's the fact that his crown wouldn't fit your head. The circumference is off and the gold would look terrible hanging around your neck. And, then there's the fact that you'd be wearing gold in the first place. Big Jewish no-no and you're more observant then we are."

"Shut up, House," Jimmy and Lisa interject simultaneously, but he doesn't even falter. He expects them to try to shut him up and they expect him to ignore them. Comfortable patterns.

"But I'm not interested in that," Greg says, his voice and face softening, and he looks at them (the wand and the cane both coming to a stop and being placed carefully on either side of him) before he pulls himself into a sitting position and eases his legs to the floor. He turns to the right and leans on his side against the bottom of the couch, watching as Jimmy comes to sit beside him. He leans over and lets his head rest on Jimmy's shoulder, turning and placing a kiss on the soft cloth covering it. "I think I'm going to give up wondering why you two are such masochists. It's not my business why you're hellbent on suffering. Either way, I benefit and you lose. If you two are--"

Jimmy takes hold of his wrist and Regulus' eyes flash in his mind. "If you think we're losing then you don't know us very well, do you?"

Greg gasps, then, and he wants to say that he doesn't know himself and that would mean that knowing them is extra work and they know how he feels about extra work (not really, but he wishes they'd believe it) but he's silent instead and completely still as Jimmy's lips meet his and leave the ghost of warmth on his (neverending) chill.

"I can't be fixed," he whispers and Lisa's eyes are on them both. He laughs into the side of Jimmy's throat, then, trailing a hand upward and beginning to unknot one of those ubiquitous ties. This one is silver, black, and scarlet, silk as they are more often than not. The bundle of nerves in his stomach loosens some and he can't figure out why. "I don't want to be."

He doesn't like being miserable but the idea of being acceptable as someone else would have him is equally unappealing, even repugnant.

"We like you anyway," Lisa says and her voice is right behind his shoulder. He doesn't remember how she got there because he's too busy watching her take the tie from him and wrap it one-handed around their now-joined hands. Three hands, three sides, three strands in the same knot. "We love you and you love us. We didn't break you, but we've certainly bought you."

"No returns after thirty days," Jimmy murmurs, a little smile on his face.

"There's nothing wrong with being damaged goods," Lisa whispers, kissing Greg's ear and letting her free hand slide over the dual erections (one after another) now asserting themselves. She always was good at multi-tasking. He can't say the same for himself but her hands have undone his belt (always the same one made from black leather but she doesn't complain about that or about his uncombed hair or his jacket sleeves being far too short) and he can't focus on much more than that warm hand on him.

Jimmy's groan behind him and the pressure he feels now in the small of his back leaves him breathing deep and uneven. It's too hot in here, air conditioning and winter chill be damned. Maybe this would be a better idea on the balcony where it's cold.

"None of us are interested in entertaining hypothermia or frostbite and you're not an exhibitionist," Lisa reminds him and he wonders if he said that aloud but her breath hitches wonderfully as the palm of his hand slides over the remains of this morning's fun and he disregards the particulars in favor of the larger concept. The already minor bruise is now pale and he loves that he can barely tell it's there. He wanted to leave more, but Jimmy distracted him. He's good at that, the bastard. Time wasn't important, at any rate.

It's Saturday and she comes in late, anyway. What else could they do but take advantage?

Greg blinks, then, before letting his eyes land on their bound hands and wondering why Lisa hasn't removed any of her clothing. Or, at least, loosened them. She seems content with just watching tonight and the thrill it gives him almost makes him groan, but he clenches his teeth and tries not to make any noise. The already soundproofed office has been Imperturbed in addition, but that's not the point. Things are never simple with him; he knows that better than anyone. That's just not the point.

Her eyes and hands are on him and he never stops watching as she unbuttons his shirt, her hand then guiding him to do the same for Jimmy. The pants will stay. They know he loves the friction and Jimmy loves the challenge. Jimmy's on his knees behind them now and Lisa is in front of him. He loves the middle. Greg's back is damp where Jimmy's using his free hand on himself. He can't see and he wishes he could. His cock throbs because it's something he wants but can't have. Lisa still hasn't touched herself and he's starting to get the idea that she has no intention of it. The knowledge that her musk is wafting around him but that none of them will do anything about (and he's not the one with his hands on Jimmy) is torturous but welcome in a way he'd never realized before. He loves hating being out of control.

Lisa's only concession to his frustration is having removed her pantyhose. Her heels are long gone, abandoned by the desk and they all know he wishes she would put them on. His chest tightens along with his balls as Lisa's mouth comes down to claim him and he can hear Jimmy's taunting chuckle behind him. They're enjoying his lack of control, reveling in the tables being turned. This was planned, damn them both.

He can't possibly be anything close to angry right now. Not with Jimmy's cock sliding against his back (he's being _used_, he knows, and the thought almost pulls another moan from him, but he holds it in) and Lisa's mouth engulfing him, the faint humming of her throat and the gentle scrape of her teeth sending vibrations through every inch of him and he wants to scream and they know it and are doing their damnedest to make it happen. He's biting his lip now, unable to tear his eyes away from the top of Lisa's head as she takes him all the way in and he wants so badly to scream, but can't.

"Let it go," Jimmy whispers, stilling against Greg's back and kissing the side of his neck. He hasn't finished, Greg knows, and wonders why Jimmy's punishing himself like this.

"You're safe." But he's not and they're not. No one ever is.

Lisa's tongue is swirling around the tip of his head now and he can feel his balls tightening further. He's surprised he managed to hold on this long, but figures that if his will were worthless he wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. He can't say anything--doesn't even know why--but still stares as he finally comes, his breath coming in heaves as Lisa demurely swallows and sighs.

"It's okay," she whispers when he begins to cry. She's untied herself from them now, standing up and walking to her desk. His eyes follow her bare feet, this empty feeling threatening to choke him to death. She returns with tissues out of the box on her desk and cleans him up. He can smell that she wants him in turn (can feel Jimmy still straining against his back, muted whimpers slipping out every few seconds) and can't understand why they're ignoring themselves for him. He shakes as their arms come up and surround him and everything is still and quiet and he thinks he might understand.

"Why won't--" he starts, but Jimmy cuts him off.

"You deserve this, Greg," Jimmy says, groaning inwardly as that ruddy cock brushes against Greg's back yet again. "You get to come first sometimes, too."

"That's a double entendre," he murmurs, sighing. He can't bring himself to make better jokes, though, because he can barely see and his eyes feel like they're burning out inside his skull.

"You're not useless," Lisa tells him, kissing him and his tears soundly, and he nods. Lisa has tied their hands together again and he's wiggling his fingers uselessly, trying to get purchase on any of theirs.

"Prove it," he growls, his voice guttural with arousal but softened with grief. Lisa raises an eyebrow at Jimmy whom he feels nod in return. They can give him this.

"Use your left," Jimmy orders and Greg chuckles hoarsely, breathing deep and concentrating on guiding his hand into the minimal space Jimmy has afforded him.

"Say it," Lisa commands, then, her face and voice contradicting one another and Greg whimpers and takes a breath.

"I'm not useless." The words sound empty and hollow to him and Lisa frowns visibly.

"Say it again," Jimmy snaps, and Greg flinches a bit. "And this time fucking mean it."

"I'm not useless--I'm not fucking useless," Greg snaps back and apparently, they're satisfied because Jimmy kisses the uneven trim of his hairline (they nag him about haircuts and say they'll start calling him Shaggy and asking for directions to Coolsville, but he keeps forgetting) and gives him more room. The gasp he gets in return fills him with a strange sense of accomplishment. Lisa is shedding her own clothes, finally, and shifts onto him with practiced ease. He doesn't remember if his leg is there or not and can't really be bothered to care.

"Bit of a sadist, though," Jimmy groans again as Greg's left hand fingers find their way into his boxers before stilling. It's obvious Greg enjoys being the cause of the problem and wants to take as long as possible to fix it. Greg loves it when they're at his mercy. _It's a damned good thing we're good at rewards_, Jimmy thinks as he watches Greg's hand on him.

"Please," Jimmy whispers and Greg smiles despite himself.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

_...I am not your friend...I am just a man who knows how to feel...I am not your friend...I'm not your lover, I'm not your family, yeah..._

He remembers the night Lily got married and his eyes burn. He remembers Sirius laughing raucously over ever-filling glasses of Ogden's and butterbeer. He remembers the way Remus elected to be the sane one and stay sober enough to get them all home safe and unSplinched. He remembers being sober, as well, but that it was not his choice. He had nursed a butterbeer, sighing into the glass and watching it refract light. He's not a happy drunk (a miserable son of a bitch, really. Some would say that he seemed to be drunk most of the time, if that was the case) and he hadn't wanted to ruin Lily's day (or James', when it got down to it). The idiot had finally fallen off his high horse and realized that he wasn't the hotshot most seemed to think he was.

Greg wondered if that time James had gotten the flu in sixth year had anything to do with it. When Madam Pomfrey had run out of Pepper-Up potion and had to wait while Slughorn replenished her supply.

**1977**

He'd found James vomiting in the first floor boys' loo on his way to the dungeons for N.E.W.T. Potions. He had sighed, a muttered 'idiot' a bit of salve on his (perpetually) irritated soul and had left James hanging over the toilet for the short walk it took to stride into the kitchens and tell the house elves he needed soda crackers or saltine, if they didn't have the former. The elves had complied graciously (Greg decided to ignore the way their ingrained terrible grammar grated on his nerves and simply concentrate on getting back to his 'patient.') and he'd made it back to James' side and told him to eat the crackers.

"What the...hell...are those...going to do, arsehole?" James had groaned, giving Greg as vicious a glare as he could manage while covered in his own vomit.

"Just eat the fucking crackers, you jumped up son of a bitch," he'd snarled, as always tiring quickly of James and his dismissive (among other things) attitude. He'd ripped open the package and shoved one or five into the dehydrated mouth before him. "They'll help."

He'd backed away and sat on the floor then, twirling his wand in his fingers, and waited. Fifteen minutes later, he'd helped James up and waved his wand over James' ruined shirt, cleaning away the vomit and straightening his tie. James had glanced at him, unsure and actually _quiet_ for the first time that Greg could remember. James had washed his face and Greg had handed him the rest of the crackers.

"Until Madam Pomfrey gets her new batch of Pepper-Up from Slughorn, don't go to class. You've got influenza. You're exhausted and won't be able to sleep through class like you need. You're flushed and clammy, dehydrated from all the puking you've been doing and you're hot to the touch. Since butterbeer is not approved for any health benefits, water and clear juice will have to do. If you get the urge to cough, try to make them as productive as possible. Pneumonia probably won't get you out of N.E.W.T classes for long."

"How did you know about--"

"Reading something other than quidditch magazines helps," Greg sighed, his tone lacking the usual contempt it held for the boy beside him. James moaned, swayed a bit, and Greg shoved another cracker in his mouth.

"I'll tell Slughorn you're sick."

And James had laughed weakly. "That's right, House. You and Evans and Sirius' brother...Slug Club royalty--you three and Snivell--" James had needled and Greg had to resist the urge to elbow him in the gut.

"Shut up about that," he commanded, his tone short and eyes narrowing. He was faintly aware that he'd taken on his father's militarized Ohioan accent and counted on James being too sick to notice. "And his name's Severus and you'll call him his name when you're talkin' to me, you got that, you idiot?"

"How d'you do that?" James had murmured, his eyes sliding shut for a moment and his grip on Greg's arm tightening for a fraction of a second. "The voice thing."

_Fuck._ "Voice thing? Care to be more specific, Potter?" He'd rolled his eyes but James hadn't noticed.

"Your voice changes a lot. Sometimes..." he'd trailed off and Greg had slowed his pace. James had taken a deep breath, Greg counting the seconds until he thought the vertigo had passed, and sighed.

"Sometimes you sound like you're from...somewhere else."

And Greg had fought the urge to again roll his eyes. "I'm a military brat," he clarified, wishing the other bastard would shut up. "I _am_ from somewhere else--the New World, if you can remember what that is. But my dad's a United States Marine. It's why I spent two years in Japan and didn't come back until this year. My dad's stationed here again so Dumbledore let me come back."

He didn't lie, exactly, but he hadn't told the entire truth, either. His father _was_ stationed here, somewhere, but he hadn't seen John House in months. He didn't want to elaborate and James hadn't earned it anyway. Never would, if his behavior was any indication. They were in front of the Fat Lady's portrait by then and Greg had slid out from under James' arm.

"Don't forget what I told you to do. Eat the damned crackers."

And James had waited until Greg had walked a suitable distance away before he climbed gingerly through the portrait hole and out of sight.

Three days later, Greg had seen Severus hanging three feet in the air, spinning like a top (swears and curses flying from his mouth, regardless) and acted, in his opinion, accordingly: he cursed them both thoroughly and threw a few choice insults their way, as well.

Severus had landed on the ground and Greg had freed him from the Body-Bind James had placed on him beforehand. Sirius had come over, shoved him, and yelled something unintelligible. He'd calmly turned and Body-Bound Sirius before reaching out to help Severus to his feet. James was already standing and Greg concentrated on frog-marching Severus away in lieu of letting the rage that filled him make him do something he might not regret. Severus had tried to wriggle out of his grip, but Greg had ignored that, intent on getting themselves both back to the entrance hall. He could hear Regulus yelling something at Sirius but figured he'd find out later.

For now, he shoved Severus forward and turned him around. He pulled out his wand and conjured a scrap of parchment with a single word written on it.

_Levicorpus_

"What--"

"Get out of here, Sev," Greg snapped, looking around anxiously. While he was a prefect, Severus was not and while he could be seen traipsing the halls on a bright, sunny post-term day, Severus couldn't afford to court trouble.

Severus had slunk away then, presumably back to the Slytherin common room, and he'd gone back outside, wondering about the ethics of turnabout and fair play.

_...If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you can find out firsthand what it's like to be me..._

**1979**

James was watching him now, he figured. House had been staring into this same tumbler of butterbeer for probably an hour. He shrugged and leaned back, draining the glass and slamming it on the table.

The _thunk_ it made satisfied him and he did it again.

"I'll take good care of her," James' voice said above him and he looked up, scowling almost unconsciously. The bastard had loosened his bow tie and unfastened the first few buttons on his shirt.

"You'd better, you bastard," he'd snarled before taking a deep breath. "Just get away from me. This is her day. Don't let me ruin it."

And James had smiled and he hadn't expected it. He'd given James a look of slight puzzlement and James' smile had softened.

"You're alright for a septic, yourself," James told him, clapping him on the shoulder. He didn't seem offended by House's subsequent flinch, but let go all the same. House held back a sigh and looked around. Remus was watching a thoroughly inebriated Sirius try to dance with a far more sober Lily. They caught each other's eye and shared a silent chuckle. Peter was off to the side, as usual, and House felt an unpleasant tingle go through him, as was common when he was confronted with Pettigrew's presence.

He hadn't realized his downward shift in mood had registered on his face until James had spoken again, this time clearly annoyed. "Oh, come off it, House. When are you going to realize that Wormtail's alright? I don't know why you hate him, but--"

"I just don't like him. I have that right."

"Yeah, and a lot of people have it about you, if you recall," James' tone was definitely pissed off now. "Glass houses...well, I guess you'd know that one, wouldn't you?"

House rolled his eyes and looked at James, took in the familiar visage of hair on end, hazel eyes, and those glasses. "My mother says 'congratulations'," he sighed, turning back to his drink.

"Tell her we said thanks," James said, his voice softer again. "Look, all I ask is that you give Peter a chance. If you can give Sniv--"

"Don't."

And James had groaned. "Oh, _fine._ Snape, then. If you can get on alright with him, then I think you should be able to extend Peter the same courtesy."

"Who told you _that_ lie? I can't stand the foul git much more than you can. Small doses are alright but, me, getting on well with Snape? Hardly."

He was lying, he knew, feeling like he was drinking firewhiskey though he wasn't. But this was Potter, whom he'd always hated and fuck him and his curiosity.

"Oh, hell, I don't know. Just...give Peter a break, won't you?"

"Be a buddyroo," House had murmured, the thought occurring to him almost instantly, and James had given him a confused look.

"What?"

"Muggle book, Potter. Seriously, borrow one from Lily once in a while. She'll be glad to share."

James had shaken his head, then, and Sirius had called him over to do something. House had waved him off, glad to be alone again. Lily was beautiful tonight, like every night, and she and James were going to be happy. He could almost hear the shock in Regulus' voice if he'd been here. The idea that Lily had gone from beginning to tolerate Potter to outright _love_ was still something they were trying to wrap their heads around. Either way, it was a moot point. There'd been a meeting that night. Regulus had said that he'd gotten a bit deeper in, but Greg hadn't wanted to think about it.

The idea of Regulus running around playing 007 (not that Regulus understood the reference) had still been a sore spot and he avoided thinking about the risk involved to Regulus' life as much as possible. It led to more than a fair share of fights, unfortunately, and makeup sex wasn't a good enough bargain for him.

Instead he watched as Sirius picked up Lily's garter from where she'd dropped it on a table after the removal ceremony and wished he'd been the one to slip it off instead. He still thinks he would have used his teeth.

The thought made him smile and he drained his glass of butterbeer, finally, before ordering another.

**December, 1981**

"Healer House, I realize that your circumstances and petition for the guardianship of Harry Potter warrant serious consideration, but considering your recent--"

"My circumstances don't fucking matter!" House yelled, slamming a hand down on the administrator's desk. "I was there! I watched them draft their wills! Under _no_ circumstances was Harry supposed to be anywhere _near_ those arseholes and where does that twisted bastard put him? He leaves Harry right on their fucking doorstep! It'll be a nice lookout--"

"Healer House, if you can't calm down, I'll be forced to have you escorted from the premises." The witch before him was calmer than he was, he'd give her that, and she hadn't flinched when his anger had caused the artificial window behind her to splinter and crack before it repaired itself (he'd wondered for half a second how an enchanted underground window could crack, considering it was a charm, but shook the thought away in favor of concentrating on what was important). He'd give her the benefit of belief that she wasn't completely incompetent at her job. It was getting increasingly difficult, but he'd do it.

"Healer House, in light of recent events, I'm afraid we cannot allow you to take custody of the minor, Harry James Potter. As you are _not_ his legal godfather--" she hitched slightly at the thought of what had happened with Sirius Black. "And as the only other wizard who would otherwise be expected to petition is a werewolf and, therefore, banned from obtaining legal custody in any case, the Ministry feels--"

"The Ministry can go fuck itself. Has anyone bothered to check in on him in the last two months?" Then he scoffed, remembering yet again where Sirius currently sat, how there'd been no trial, how no Veritaserum was administered, no Legilimens was summoned...how it was exacerbated by the fact that he couldn't shake the feeling something was off about the entire situation. "Of course not, because that would mean actually following your own fucking laws and we can't have _that_ nonsense! The very idea's blasphemy!"

"I'll have to ask you to leave, now, Healer House." The only evidence House had of the Ministry witch's true feelings on the matter was the faint pink tinge that had come to color her cheeks. He fed upon it, let it fuel his anger.

"Fuck it, I'm done with this."

He'd make one last stop and then he'd be leaving. There was no point anymore, nothing he could do to stop the slow siphoning of his soul from his body. But the least he could do was check to make sure that innocent little fireball he'd known and loved was going to be reasonably okay. He'd survive, of that House was sure. The question was only what condition he'd be in afterward.

He took no solace in the fact that it'd be better than he.

_...Reminds me that there's more to life than living...And maybe giving up's not bad, but part of letting go of me..._

**31 July, 2001**

It's fitting, really, that the kid should show up on his twenty-first birthday. He walks with a limp that House can see improved, but won't any further. He twirls his own cane and laughs bitterly inside.

"You're a bit different from my mother's pictures," Harry tells him, both leaning on their respective canes and House standing so that they can get a proper look at one another. "The lack of a smile's a dead giveaway, though."

House snorts and leans back against his desk. "Sorry I haven't accosted you. Hope you're not too disappointed, kid."

Harry smiles, small and slightly bitter, and House cringes inside. He looks like that, he knows. He wishes Harry doesn't. He wishes he believed that his fellows won't sooner or later.

"I figure from what Remus told me about you, you couldn't be that bad. Hagrid said you and my mother had been really good friends. And that you were friends with Sirius' brother, as well."

"He's not entirely right, but not wrong either." House doesn't know if that statement quite makes the same sense out loud that it did in his head, but can't find the effort to give a damn. House notices that Neville Longbottom is hovering around the entranceway to his office. Notices the rings on each of their fingers and grins a bit.

"Congratulations," he murmurs, looking down to retrieve the bottle of whiskey he keeps in his desk drawer. Neville comes forward and House pours them each a shot to toast with.

"May fundie Muggles everywhere cringe in your wake."

Harry sighs and chuckles, a grin coming to his face as he sees the slight shock that now adorns his husband's. "Remus told me you were a shameless arsehole who delighted in unsettling others to the best of your ability. He seems to have been right."

House smirks and then laughs as Harry leans to kiss Neville on the cheek. There's a gasp behind them and the three of them look to see Simmons having returned with the other minions. One of them is newer, a girl--House thinks her name is Winthrop. She's the one who gasped. Simmons, however, just looks amused. House finds himself strangely pleased at his fellow's nonchalance in the face of perceived weirdness. He'll have to see if he can strengthen that immunity and will probably have fun trying.

"Kids," he says regally, something approximating a smile coming to his face. "This is Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. They're married and I first met Harry during his babyhood appointment with a fireplace and bearskin rug."

He doesn't mention Luna. Winthrop (or whoever) looks like she's about to faint as it is.

"You did not," Harry rolls his eyes and thinks of the few pictures he does have of himself as a very small child. "My mother never would have let anyone humiliate me like that. Or given you the blackmail material."

_True,_ House thinks and after his fellows leave, he gets Harry, Neville, and Remus' address to send him a letter or something later. They talk a long while and Harry is introduced to Wilson and Cuddy, the latter of whom is distinctly ill at ease with House for reasons Harry believes have to do with his half of their shared limp. After Wilson and Cuddy both leave, Harry explains that Dumbledore and Snape are both dead, as is Sirius. House isn't surprised about Snape or even Sirius, but the news that Dumbledore is also dead (at Snape's hands and on Draco's behalf, no less) throws him a bit. Harry shows him carefully preserved news clippings and photographs of the scene where Snape's bloodied body was found. The pictures are slightly damaged but House doesn't feel up to speculating why.

"Before he left the last time," Harry tells him, his voice heavy but curious. "He said that you'd know where to find Draco and would I kindly do him the favor of inquiring after his health."

House sighs and thinks of his surrogate little brother and that night in his parents' home. That had been the last time he'd seen Snape alive. He remembers their talk about Voldemort's mental capacities and repulsion of the Muggle world. Silently, he releases his wand into his right hand and waves it around the room. Harry and Neville both recognize that he's Imperturbing the office, but don't comment on it.

"He's living with my mom and dad," House admits, hoping his father hasn't reduced the poor kid to a quivering mass of nerves by now. "He's fine, I think."

Harry nods and rises awkwardly to his feet. Neville places a hand on his shoulder to brace him and when Harry's got his bearings, they both turn to shake his hand.

"Hope to see you again soon," Harry says, a funny little smile coming to his face. "And under better circumstances."

"Yeah," House agrees and they leave.

_...We make believe every day...We make our lives seem like they're still worth living, but find out in the end...It's only us that we've been kidding...Just another stupid drama that no one notices but you...And you only take an interest when there's nothing else to do..._

...TBC...


	6. Chapter 6

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name. Plus, there's lyrics, of course, and probably other stuff I haven't thought up yet. Like quotes from various sources such as the recaps from Television Without Pity. And Ayersman seems to be a commonly-used asshole for Housefics, so I'm borrowing him, too. And I think I might have seen the Bond film idea in a fanfic (although I have a faint suspicion it first surfaced in an RPG I used to mod). If the original author in either case wants to claim credit, they can do so if they please.

**Summary:** "Oh, come on, Lisa. You want this. You should enjoy yourself at least some of the time. We all should."

Yes, she'd supposed then. They should.

**Rating: MA**, which you must surely know by now.

**Pairings, etc.** Gregory House/Lisa Cuddy/James Wilson and all that that implies; James Potter/Lily Evans Potter; Gregory House/Regulus Black; Harry Potter/Neville Longbottom;

**Notes:** This chapter represents a turning point in that the perspective will change. It occurred to me that I could tell the story in a completely different way and I decided to go with it. Het, slash, and OT3 (and the pre-requesite awkwardness) coming up. Oh, and a reference to 'The Mistake' from S2, episode eight. I don't think we were ever told the surgeon's name, so I made one up. And keep in mind that this does take place after The Demons series by **kidsnurse** and does refer to events in that series.

Reviews are always encouraged and very much appreciated.

_...I wrote the gospel on giving up..._

**May, 2006**

He'd been completely put off by sleep and everything that went along with it. She had been able to see it in the way he began to stall as long as possible whenever she told him that yes, it was four in the morning; no, he could not spend the night sitting in his office with no cases. She had paperwork--fine, she's a hypocrite--go the fuck home. He had been exhausted, she easily surmised, cringing at the red tinge that had come to color his blue eyes, half expecting them to turn purple at any moment. But still, he refused sleep. James was away at a conference in Augusta that week and he'd called her office every night, anxiety tracing the edges of his voice as he inquired about whether Greg had finally crashed yet. She would tell him no in a whisper, knowing House and his indescribable hearing could be on the other side of the door. He was awake for three and four day stretches and she had to physically stop herself from ordering zolpidem from the pharmacy to spike his coffee with. For all she knew, he had safeguarded against that, too. Maybe his paranoia was common amongst wizards and he was just going with what he knew. He avoided her, as well, preferring to barricade himself in the small library he'd set up in his living room, as if a wall of books could protect him from whatever he seemed to be hiding from. She'd never wanted to set fire to books before, but he was making her desperate.

She wondered cynically if he'd anticipated her move and put some kind of flame-retardant spell on them. He always knew what she was thinking anyway. She'd long gotten used to it, but it angered her now more than she ever thought possible.

"What's wrong, House?" she'd whispered, her hand coming to alight on his shoulder one sleepless night (out of many, many in horrible succession) as he wandered about in the same jeans and t-shirt he'd worn all weekend. "You won't sleep anymore."

And he'd looked at her with no expression, his face so empty and eyes so pained she'd needed to look away to keep from feeling as though he was crawling through her thoughts, her insides. He'd been drinking something golden in his red coffee cup and when she tasted it she'd coughed at the unfamiliar burn lacing her throat. It wasn't any whiskey that she'd ever tasted before and that scared her even more. He hadn't answered her when she asked what it was. Other times, she didn't say anything but he glared at her with such venom, snarling in languages she couldn't understand and she would hurl his tumbler of whatever it was at his head and he'd mutter something and the glass and liquid would stop in midair before falling to the carpet with a wet, hollow _thump_, but she'd usually be gone by then. She needed to get away from House before she slapped him or some other thing she'd most likely regret. She would cry those nights, hoping that perhaps if she screamed her tears loudly enough, he'd understand. But he was gone, inside himself, and couldn't seem to hear her.

_...All I see are dark grey clouds, in the distance, moving closer with every hour..._

Wilson had returned to the same treatment three days later and then would come into her office, the beginnings of words (whole diatribes, more often than not) on his tongue, but at the last minute they'd both chicken out and he'd sigh and slink off into the darkness of the sterile halls around them, the swish of his labcoat being the only clue he'd even been there. One night, he came back, dropping onto her couch and burying his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he struggled not to fold under the tension and worry that was clearly crushing him.

She tried to ignore the tears she could see on his face before he wiped hastily at it with one of the paper towels he'd snatched out of the dispenser in her private bathroom.

Wilson didn't seem to notice the red marks the harsh material had left on his cheeks. They were losing him (not that she hadn't already) and she didn't know how to find him again. She couldn't even stop to ask for directions.

That night, she'd cried into her evening tea after going to his office to remind him about the clinic duty he was still making sure to skip and finding a House-shaped void in the room, the only remaining debris being drafts of a will scattered haphazardly across both his desks. The papers themselves had resembled the whiteboard in his conference room, with bullet points and sections crossed out, little additions in the margins. Names she recognized and some she didn't scattered throughout. Taped to the backside of the most complete-looking one (written on parchment with a quill instead of being typed in ink on printer paper like the others) was a tiny key with instructions for someone named 'Griphook' at some place called 'Gringotts'.

The next week, House had collapsed in front of his team and she'd gotten that page from Wilson. **House is down.**

**_Nine weeks afterward..._**

She supposes she should have seen at least part of it coming. She'd always noticed that about the two of them, the way they seemed so at ease with one another, so (it brought a giggle into her throat to think about it) domestic. It seems to play like a 'behind the scenes' feature on one of House's many Director's Cut DVDs. There's even commentary as she thinks of House and Wilson inviting her to one of their 'Movie Night' miniature film festivals one Friday evening. Being forced to sit through the SpongeBob SquarePants movie and wanting to claw her eyes out until Wilson saved both of them by pulling out _Tomorrow Never Dies_ with Pierce Brosnan (not her favorite Bond, but close...besides, he was the best-looking one at the time). It had promptly put an end to House's spirited Mr. Krabs impressions and she thinks Wilson had it all planned. She'd wondered if House had told him about their yearly college tradition of watching every Bond movie and picking them apart. Her favorite part was the way House grinned at her and mouthed the words, 'Pussy Galore' and how she'd begun to giggle helplessly. She fondly recalls Wilson staring at her with plain amusement while she laughed until her stomach hurt. Even twenty years later, House can still make her laugh with only words, only looks. She wonders why she didn't see it, then. Of course, if she'd known then, she probably would have died of shock and it never would have happened.

Not all surprises are bad, they've all found, but the thing that gets her the most is the credits. For as long as they've done this, they've always watched the ending credits of movies, calling out their own names every time they showed up. But that was forgotten after she'd returned from a short trip to House's bathroom to find the DVD paused and Wilson sitting with his eyes shut, breathing deeply as House's teeth gently grazed his earlobe. She'd looked down then and her heart skipped at least three beats as she registered House's hand molding what was rapidly becoming Wilson's erection. Ringing silence in her ears, followed by a quiet chuckle. House had known she'd look, had expected it, had _counted_ on it. What she hadn't realized then was that she'd wanted it, too.

It had been slow, awkward. House was still regaining all that lost weight, his arms and chest healing from IVs and the PICC line. Wilson made breakfast, she drove them both to work, and at night, she'd find herself curled up beside them in either hers or House's big beds. They hadn't done anything really, at first. House was easily exhausted and Cuddy was shy. Sometimes, she'd wake in some early hour and find them talking softly, House's bruised arm draped across Wilson's chest or House nestled in the crook of Wilson's neck.

Occasionally, House's left leg would spasm from the imagined pain and she'd use the preparation of the morphine to escape the feeling of intrusion that was engulfing her. She would return and Wilson would inject the dosage and then get back into the bed, curling right up against House and pulling him closer as he drifted off to sleep. He wouldn't ask her why she was perched on the end of House's bedroom chair with her knees drawn up to her chest. They would watch each other until both were too exhausted to stay awake. Only then would she consider coming back to the bed. She slept facing away from them, her eyes on the door as they finally shut.

One morning, she awoke at five to find herself curled on House's other side, her right ankle on his left. She could just see the end of one of Wilson's cowlicks on the other side of the bed and couldn't muster up the effort to leave. It had been Sunday and the sun hadn't yet risen. The streetlights had just gone out and everything was bathed in a faint purple glow. House was in the middle and suddenly turned over. She had frozen with shock, thinking that surely now he was going to begin mocking her (even though there really hadn't been a reason to, but she figures it was nerves) and then wake Wilson to regale him with the tale. But he hadn't. His eyes had been bleary and she could tell he wasn't completely awake. He blinked a bit and then sighed, leaning over and pulling her closer. He was more awake now but his morning erection hadn't receded yet. He sighed again and tangled a hand in her hair, his head ducking down to nuzzle her chest with his nose. Her breath had hitched and she felt him laugh into her skin.

"Jackass," she'd whispered automatically, her trepidation beginning to dissipate as he chuckled again.

"Tease," he whispered back, moving closer so that the head of his penis poked her in the left thigh and a tingle of want slid down her spine. "You're beautiful."

"You're with James," she'd countered, glancing at their still-sleeping friend.

"Your point? It didn't matter last year."

She had blanched then, remembering seeing him suffering silently and her and Wilson wanting so desperately for House to feel something that wasn't all-encompassing loss. Needing to share in that feeling. But, she reasoned, that was different. Not a pity-fuck. Just...comforting a terrible hurt in the one way she'd known could really help. He could forget. He could know he was still loved by at least one person (or, in this case, two).

_...I wanted to believe in all the words that I was speaking as we moved together in the dark...And all the friends that I was telling and all the playful misspellings and every bite I gave you left a mark..._

"You were hurting--" she shifted a bit and took a breath. "You're still hurting. We just..." Another breath before she tried to sit up. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. You're...his, now, and I'm--"

"He wants you, too," House had countered further, surprising her so that her motion to sit up faltered and she fell back to hit one of the multitudes of pillows that always filled House's bed. He looked at her then, outright smiling at the way her eyes had widened.

"We...can't...the..." But he'd pressed a finger to her mouth and then reached up to trace it over each of her eyebrows.

"It's none of their business."

At that she'd had to laugh. "Hypocrite. How many times has James complained that you tell everyone the two of you are sleeping together?"

"They don't believe it, not really," Greg said lightly, shifting up on his elbows and looking over at James (she realizes that this was the exact point she started privately thinking of them exclusively by their first names). She watched, blinking with mild surprise at the tender way Greg leaned down to kiss James' ear, his tongue darting out to lick the rim. James had moaned slightly in his sleep and Lisa had laughed again, herself.

"Oh, yes, they do. There are bets. You're awfully fond of his ears, aren't you?"

"They're tasty little treats, I must admit," Greg had agreed with a wolf-like leer in James' direction before turning back over and letting a hand come up to trail down the side of her hip, which she hadn't realized was exposed. She bit back a gasp and he grinned even more widely. "And as long as the winnings go to me, why the hell should I care?"

"You just like having us at your mercy," she'd scowled, and Greg had waited a beat, pretending to think before nodding.

"Pretty much. Besides, it's not like you mind...and the reverse certainly is true. Clinic duty comes to mind..." And here he actually reached out and kissed her. It was soft, light and even less urgent than they'd been the last time they'd done this but with most of the same features as they had twenty years before. Now the scratchiness of his permanent stubble was tickling her bottom lip but the sense that he liked to take his time, getting the full benefits of whatever he started with her, was still there and before she knew it she had kissed back. His hand curled more securely around her hip and she pulled him a bit further toward herself. He'd ended the kiss, again burying his face between her breasts and kissing the skin there as well, and she had moaned as quietly as she could.

"You have us the rest of the time. Shouldn't we get a turn, too?" Another voice asked that question and she could see that James was awake now staring in a sleepily surprised sort of way. She caught a glimpse of him before Greg's shoulder eclipsed her view and her eyes shut, her body choosing to concentrate on the way he was letting his hands run down the sides of her arms. She felt another hand joining Greg's while his teeth nipped at her own ear and moaned audibly that time. She heard James' own groan in response and opened her eyes to find him absently beginning to rub his own erection with his unoccupied left.

"People will talk," she'd protested feebly and Greg had rolled his eyes before reaching around to pull open his nightstand drawer. She laughed yet again at the Playboys in clear view and then saw the wand he kept there along with its' holster. Next to the wand was a package of condoms with a moving logo that immediately let her know it was magical as well as an accompanying tube of lubricant.

He removed his wand from the holster and sat up slowly before taking a breath. "_Impeturbatus_," he said in a clear but quiet voice, waving the wand around at the room before them and a faint blue glow enveloped everything before fading. "Instant privacy."

"Aren't you two lucky?" she quipped and then something occurred to her. "I swear...House...Wilson--if you--"

"Ah, ah, ah," he rebutted airily. "Have our job performances suffered?"

She had sighed then and scowled again, glaring at him. "House, if I find you two holed up in an MRI..."

"That's one of my fantasies for you only, actually," he said softly and heard James gasp and a choked moan sounded behind him. Greg looked over his shoulder and chuckled at the orgasm James was dangerously close to. "You are _so_ easy. Amateur."

Greg then reached over and rubbed a hand over James's still hardening cock and smiled evilly at the uneven whimper he received in response. Lisa had watched in utter fascination at the thoroughly desperate look that had come over James' face, her own breath catching in her throat. Then Greg had taken his hand away and James had glared in a scandalized fashion. "You fucking sadist."

"I'm not the one you want right now." Then he seemed to think a little more and reconsider his answer. "Well, not the only one."

"Shut up," James had gasped in a faint, slightly hoarse voice. "You don't like it when I interrupt _you_ fantasizing about Lisa. Unless you're fantasizing about both of us."

"You--" then she stopped herself. Of course he had. He all but boasted about that fact. Greg didn't waste a beat, leaning back against her and shuddering himself as Lisa let her hands slide up his body to begin pinching his nipples.

_Punishment,_ she told herself, squeezing harder and enjoying the little thrill his subsequent hiss gave him. He laughed into her ear. "That's the spirit..." and he moaned again as her hip jolted his erection. She could feel wetness seeping through the thin cotton of her panties and wondered if it was his or hers. Another low moan sounded and it was a moment before she realized it was hers, on both counts.

"Oh, come on, Lisa. You want this. You should enjoy yourself at least some of the time. We all should."

Yes, she'd supposed then. They should.

Greg had grinned and James had stared, wide-eyed, as she got up and walked around the bed, sitting down before James (_Jimmy_, her brain reminded her firmly. She would call him Jimmy. She wasn't one of his wives and right now she didn't have to be his boss...unless he wanted it) and accepting the condom and tube of lubricant House--Greg readily handed to her.

"Magical lube is way better than Muggle," Greg had told her matter-of-factly and she had been tempted to ask why he knew that but decided she didn't care. She squeezed a liberal amount onto her palm and marveled at its instant warmth while Greg shamelessly pulled Jimmy's pajama pants and boxers further down his legs, fully exposing his erection as well as his thighs. "And here." She looked at the condom he'd given her and felt her eyebrow rise of its own accord. "Just put the damned thing on. I don't imagine you want to be covered in come...unless that is what you want, in which case, where the hell have you been all my life?"

"Shut up, Greg," she'd said and found herself surprised at how effortlessly she'd used his first name. She decided then that she would only call them their first names when they were by themselves. No one else at work did, after all, with the exception of Stacy and she was long-gone. Jimmy was staring at her hand and the tube now and she doubted he knew he was whimpering by now. She smiled wickedly, reveling in Greg's answering cackle, and began to run her free hand up and down Jimmy's shaft, delighting in the throaty moan she received in response.

"You're better at this than I thought," Greg had remarked in a seemingly off-handed way. "Cuddy, what _have_ you been doing?"

"Lisa," she had corrected, not taking her eyes off Jam--Jimmy's. They were boring into her with an intensity she'd only previously seen from Hou--Greg. Then they slid shut and Jimmy melted into the pillow behind his back, thrusting with more and more force the longer she stroked. She stopped and he just about started to cry. Greg chuckled in a teasing fashion and ripped the condom packet open but he didn't give it to her. Instead, he unrolled it about halfway before leaning over Jimmy and rolling it the rest of the way down with his mouth. Jimmy moaned long and loudly, fisting the bedsheets in an obvious effort not to grab the back of Greg's head and keep him going. Lisa watched in still unending curiosity as the condom glowed a faint yellow and disappeared altogether, giving the impression of Jimmy not wearing one at all. Greg swirled his tongue around the tip of Jimmy's head a few times and laughed as the man in question literally screamed.

"You and your fucking patience," Jimmy had snapped, glaring as Greg sat up again. Lisa had actually cackled then, remembering all too well how frustrating House and his infinite patience could be.

"All this coming and going. We're not two--well, three--ships passing in the night. I like to have the time to take a few photos, get and give a few autographs."

"Yeah, of the whole fucking crew."

"Jimmy Wilson, will you listen to the mouth on you," Greg had teased, making a pointing then twirling motion with his hand. Jimmy had obviously understood what he meant to do because he immediately sat up and turned to grip the headboard, kneeling, his breathing deep and heavy.

"Well, well, well," Lisa had snarked, unable to resist. "I see we're already well acquainted with the Dark Side of the Force."

"I appreciate the _Star Wars_ reference, Lisa, I really do," House had snarked back, grinning now. "But you didn't really expect that Jimmy was a golden boy all the time, did you?"

"He's been around you too long," she complained effortlessly, her tone somehow managing not to betray how wet she could feel herself getting now. "So, come here often, stranger, or is this an exercise in 'How to Freak Out Your Girlfriend?'"

He'd outright smiled at her use of the word 'girlfriend' and she found herself smiling back. "A little of both, actually. And I had nothing to do with 'corrupting' our dear Jimmy here. Mr. Equal Opportunity started that reputation long before I ever met him."

"You're not new at this, either, I gather." It hadn't been a question and House had shrugged, staring at Jimmy's ass and the way it had gotten visibly more tense.

"Look," Jimmy had grunted, sending a scowl at each of them. "I know you two do a lot of that talking crap when you get in the mood--Greg, don't even start--but right now you're torturing me. It's just not nice."

"Since when have I been nice?" Greg had asked, leering again at Jimmy and his obvious frustration. "And as it's Lisa's first time dabbling into the magical side of things, at least from this angle and with prior knowledge this time--"

"You used--"

"Of _course_ I used magical condoms," he snapped as though this was common knowledge and everyone with a brain knew it. "I only use magical condoms. I just made sure you were too distracted to notice. It worked out in the end, really."

"You bastard," she tried to snarl, but it came out breathy instead. He smiled a little, moving gingerly to accomodate his still rather weakened body.

"So punish me, O Mistress of the Dark and Deviant...yeah, deviant." Greg smirked and took gentle hold of Lisa's still lubricated hand, spreading more over her fingertips and merely raising an eyebrow when she yanked her hand out of his.

"I'm not doing that," she said, wincing inwardly at how shaky her voice sounded. Greg had sighed and took hold of her shoulders.

"If you can hold on for a little bit longer, Jimmy, I think this will work out in all our favors."

Jimmy had sighed then, his breathing getting deeper and more ragged and she knows she should have known what was coming. Greg pushed gently on her shoulders until she was lying flat on the bed away from Jimmy, who was now partially hidden again. She could see his eyes and his bangs hanging in his eyes. She absently observed that he needed a bit of a trim before rolling her eyes and concentrating on the way Greg was moving her legs so that they hung over his left arm.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, thankful that her voice was a little more forceful this time.

"Trust me," he said and this time his voice was soft and she could hear each of them breathing deeply. Controlled breaths and she could see Greg's erection straining against his own pajama pants and wondered how he had so much self-control when she felt like she might come at any moment and he hadn't even touched her yet.

She nodded slowly, her eyes trained on her own fingers as his came up and stole most of the lube from them. He added more before reaching out with his right hand and muttering, "_Accio wand!_" and the nightstand drawer flew open, the appropriated object landing in his grip not even a second later. She watched as he flicked it in a circular motion and murmured something else before she felt a strange cold, airy sensation throughout her rectum and especially her anus.

"What are you doing?"

"Lisa, we're doctors and not stupid. We've all seen colonoscopies. There's a reason we use such strong laxatives." Jimmy chuckled and she wanted to smack them both, but decided against it.

She resisted the urge to sit up, but took a breath and watched as he inserted two of his slicked left hand fingers inside her moving them back and forth at a lurid pace and she and Jimmy both moaned simultaneously. Is this what he had been so excited about? Well, she supposed, she could certainly see why now. Her eyes fluttered shut and she felt him add another finger, stretching her before his breath blew across the wetness of her...forward entrance...and she came almost immediately. He laughed then, and said something to Jimmy about her giving him a run for his money in the 'easy to please' department and her eyes snapped back open.

"Oh, yeah?" she challenged, watching the now-blurry form before her and Greg grinned wickedly.

"Yeah. You're as bad as Brownilocks, there."

"You wish," she said dismissively and she could tell he was smiling even wider. "Look, I know you're really sadistic with all this making us wait nonsense, but could you maybe hurry? I'd like to come again sometime before the next Ice Age."

"Pushy, aren't we? The term is, 'Please come again.' Ball-breaker."

"Just fuck me, already," she snapped and she heard Jimmy moan again. Greg hadn't been lying when he said that Jimmy was easy to please.

So he had. And afterward she'd watched in sated curiosity as he cleaned Jimmy out, as well, before inserting not two or even three fingers into his anus, but four. His groans and shudders were loud enough that she was glad House had cast whatever spell he had before all this. After a good stretching, Greg again cast another Summoning charm, this time for a rather amusingly shaped dildo.

Jimmy had enough sense left to get a nice dig in and told Lisa, quite shamelessly, that if Greg tried anything right now his guts would fall out. In response, Greg had all but rammed the vibrator inside Jimmy and turned it up to the highest setting. Jimmy managed not to yell, but bit down hard on his own lip, gripping the headboard and thrusting back against the humming object in Greg's hand.

"Tolerate that, bitch," Greg had snapped, but that hadn't stopped him from shoving Jimmy backward and taking the other man's cock into his mouth. Lisa stared, wide-eyed and probably open-mouthed, as Jimmy's groans rose to outright screams again and he fisted the sheets before coming as hard as she'd ever seen anybody come. Greg tormented him a little bit longer, licking Jimmy from root to tip and chuckling around him so that Jimmy moaned even more and tried to thrust a few more times before he gave up and went completely limp.

Greg sat up, then, and Lisa was amazed to see that he still hadn't come, himself.

"You're ridiculously self-controlled, has anyone ever told you that?" she asked and Greg gave her a little smile.

"I can wait, too. Unlike the two of you, I just won't bitch about it."

"He wants one of us to make him come," Jimmy said breathlessly, struggling now to keep his eyes open. "He's a taker, that one."

"And you two like giving. Who am I to refuse such a gift?"

She laughs now at the way she realized later that Greg could come on his own without a problem. It was just better and he enjoyed it more when someone else was kind enough to give him what he wanted. She'd learned quickly enough that Jimmy wasn't quite as easy to please as Greg made out. He could be petulant when he bothered. Sometimes he was downright sneaky, and had proved that not a week later when he'd showed up at her house at four in the morning and he fucked her on her kitchen counter while Greg slept at the apartment. She didn't find out until the following night in her freshly Imperturbed office that House hadn't known a thing about it and would have been irritated if he hadn't shown her a piece of parchment with duplicates, each with their own names at the top.

"I knew you'd want rules or some shit," he said with a little smile at her. Then he gestured toward the parchment and she could see it was written in ink with a quill and she'd remembered the will for a moment, wondering if he saved the parchment and quill for what he thought was important. She read through them, a reluctant smile coming to her face as she noted that he'd taken each of their idiosyncrasies, habits, and respective schedules into account. She'd laughed out loud at the official-sounding title he'd given it. The official-looking nature of the document, however, hadn't stopped him from making his own little comments in the margins. Habits died hard, after all, and this wasn't a book (those were spared for some reason he had yet to reveal and she kept forgetting to ask why).

**_The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Successful Threesome_** _(and this would work for Muggles, too, really)_

**I) No Lying if it can be avoided.** _For more on the consequences of lying, see Jimmy's multiple ex-wives. Those hellions will spin you all kinds of tales. (I know, I asked them.)_

**II) Each side of this triad can copulate fornicate fuck another side when one of said three isn't present.** _Meetings and conferences are a bitch to deal with as it is. Let's not add another half._

**III) When all three sides are in attendance, each side gets a turn unless a different arrangement is previously agreed upon by at least two parties. No one or two get all the fun.** _Or the funbags because that's just cruel, Cuddles._

She took a moment to punch him lightly in the shoulder because he knew how much she hated his 'Cuddles' jokes and told him so every time, but he was smiling and she realized she was, too. Jimmy was scowling but only half-heartedly. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze and returned to the document.

**IV) We will alternate our music selection in the car every morning.** _Because frankly (and I don't think I'm alone here), I'm really tired of this Lawrence Welk shit._

She'd rolled her eyes at the _American Beauty_ reference, muttering 'idiot' for his benefit, quietly relished the laugh she'd received in response, and took a deep breath.

**V) Whoever constitutes family in your eyes may be made aware of the current arrangement.** _My mother won't have a problem with this. My father doesn't have a choice. If either of you want to let your parents, et al., in on the 'secret', tell them to send good wedding gifts. None of that spice rack crap. And no boxes of chocolate unless they come from Godiva or Honeydukes. Life is_ not _one, damn it, and I'm not putting up with crap I can't eat. Don't make me quote CGB Spender because you both know I will. That was an awesome episode. I think I'll watch some XF when Jimmy and I get home._

She'd looked up then, prepared to remind him that threesomes weren't actually legal as far as marriage went. But he was smiling again and she remembered that his mother was a witch. Then she remembered that he'd specifically referred to any positive response as 'wedding gifts.'

"Are you saying y-you want...t-to marry us someday?" she asked haltingly, blinking at the unexpected tears that had come to her eyes.

"Fair's fair, right?" he'd asked quietly, his eyes firmly trained on the parchment she held. "The wizarding world doesn't have silly restrictions on exactly what constitutes a marriage. They save _their_ idiocy for what constitutes a--"

He'd cut himself off, a slight flush coming to his face, and she'd sensed that he wasn't going to elaborate. She let it go and returned to the parchment.

**VI) Healer/Doctor Gregory House will be using magic in Doctor Lisa Cuddy's presence, as well as Doctor James Wilson's.** _Try not to freak out. It makes me self-conscious and you know how I hate that. Cuddy, I can hear you rolling your eyes now. Remember, one day they'll roll right out of your head. I should know. I've seen it. Not to mention, I'd hate to have to Modify your memories. It's such a hassle, after all, and calm acceptance simply saves time. I mean, you have to get the wand movement just right or you end up in Saint Mungo's like a certain vain idiot with an exceptionally bright smile, that son of a bitch. I think he's using product, myself, but I just can't prove it._

She'd refrained from rolling her eyes, then, just to prove him wrong and given him an extra sigh in addition. But, more to the point, that part was a given after twenty-odd years of knowing what he could do and she had no idea who the hell this 'vain idiot' was, but Greg would have sounded like an excellent fit in most cases.

"You certainly do like to ramble, don't you? See, we know--" and she'd indicated James, as well, who had smiled knowingly. "You don't blather even one-third as much aloud as you do on paper. You're lucky we're patient."

And House had smiled, too, and she'd bitten her lip and continued.

**VII) If any emergencies or accidents require magical remedies, I want to know you'll accept them. If I didn't think they'd help, I wouldn't do it.**

There was no added notation and she figured he'd felt he made his point clear. She already knew that about him in general and had simply nodded.

**VIII) If you two ever feel like kidnapping me again, know that you have my permission. I declare Dr. James Wilson, M.D., as my medical proxy and re-declare Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D., as my physician of record.** _I trust and love you both._

She had stared at those last six words and realized after a moment that she'd began having trouble breathing past the lump in her throat and looked at James to see him pale and breathing deeply in a effort not to cry himself. She looked down to see two tear stains on the parchment, making the ink in those places run. House had sighed and let his wand slide out into his hand. He waved it over the parchment and the ink stains turned back into legible words.

"If I'd known you two were going to start crying, I'd've waterproofed the damned thing sooner."

But she only sniffled and stood, coming around the edge of the desk, taking them both into a hug and squeezing them both as hard as she could without risking injury.

"Um, ow," House complained, but he looked more surprised than pained. "Could you possibly finish reading before trying to smother us both to death?" She'd smiled, rolled her eyes again, and gone to sit back behind her desk and gingerly picked the document back up.

**IX) We will continue to alternate on Movie Night, now incorporating Lisa Cuddy's picks. She has good taste, thank God.**

She'd laughed at that, grinning brightly and taking a deep breath to release the tension that had been building since she started reading. "I'll do my best," she promised and he'd nodded succinctly as though he'd known she would.

**X) If When the kids find out, we should tell a reasonable amount of the truth.** _It kind of fits with rule number one and I know I'd personally like to see Cameron's head go 'pop'. And when the rest of the hospital finds out after that and that troglodyte, Ayersman, decides to make anything of it, he can bite all three of us. You own him, Cuddy. Remember that. Use it wisely. If you like, I can dig up whatever dirt is necessary. I have a deal with some friends on Extendable Ears at half-price. And if I think of anything else to add or either of you do, please feel free to tell me in the most graphic way possible. With many embellishments and naughty words. Watch me nod happily and comply._

"Okay, what the hell are Extendable Ears? And you have friends besides us? Where?"

"England, Cuddy," House had reminded her and she'd sighed and watched as he'd pulled some stretchy string-looking things out of one of his inner jacket pockets. He held one end out to her and mimicked putting it in his ear. She followed his direction and the other end promptly lengthened and slithered through the tiny crack under the closed door behind him. Instantly, she could hear Brenda finishing ordering Dr. Chase into Exam Room Two with a laryngitis patient. She blinked and stared at House, who again had that small smile on his face.

"Do I even want to know what you do with these?"

"A good spy never betrays himself or lets it be known which side he truly works for," House told her and she sighed and removed the string from her ear. It immediately retracted to its original size and he bunched it back up before stowing it in another inner pocket.

"As long as we're not sued, I don't want to know. I don't even know how I'd explain it."

"You won't," he said simply and she sighed and nodded. Then something occurred to her.

"When you tried to blackmail Henderson to get Kayla a new liver, you mentioned him cheating on his wife..."

"I saw them at the Christmas party," House replied but Cuddy and Wilson both snorted.

"You would have had to go first," Wilson reminded him with a cool expression to emphasize his point. "And we all know you'd rather castrate yourself than do that willingly. We'll assume you've put these to use before and simply leave it at that."

Cuddy sighed again, glancing at the parchment again before looking back at House. "I hope you don't expect me to frame this..."

His exultant smile told her that's exactly what he expected.

"No!" she objected giving him an incredulous look for good measure. "I'm not stupid, House, and I'm certainly not going to let donors--"

"Relax," House said soothingly and profferred his wand again. He waved it over the parchment and it momentarily showed a false certificate before revealing its true wording back to her. "No one will know what it really says aside from the three of us."

And she'd leaned back, smiling helplessly, the tears returning and sliding down her cheeks. House had sighed and reached into his breast pocket, removing the handkerchief he'd put there, today. He'd even worn a checked dark blue tie to match the light blue shirt Wilson must have suggested. The same for the pants, which Wilson _had_ to have ironed. She certainly appreciated both their efforts on the first of the month--a donor day and not just any, but an Old Biddy Donor Day that had Cuddy shut up in one of Goody Cuddy's Prim and Proper Puritan Wear suits with high collars and nonexistent necklines that House and Wilson liked to poke endless fun at. She let them but only because she enjoyed it even more when they went to her house after work and she let them remove said offending garments.

The intent on their faces and the way Jimmy, especially, just about exploded the first time he found the garters and stockings underneath. The way Greg had grabbed her ass and licked one of the raised hemlines adorning the brassiere. The way Greg had asked her in a strangely quiet voice if she'd let him remove the garters with his teeth. She had let him remove both and he'd thanked her by subsequently devouring her so thoroughly that by the time he finished, she could barely see straight. The feeling of their hands following one another, positively competing to touch as much of her for as long as possible. The feeling of their mouths on her breasts and the sight of them touching each other in ways that made her moan before she could stop herself (not that she would have). That more than made it worth it.

**The Guide**, as House (the biggest Hitchhiker's Guide fan in all the worlds, in all the universe) lovingly calls it, hangs in a frame he conjured on her office wall next to her Undergraduate and U of M Medical School degrees. The fact that there are ten seems to endlessly amuse House and she and Wilson both roll their eyes and ignore him.

_...Whatever I said to make you think that love's the religion of the weak...This morning, we love like weaklings...The worst is over..._

...TBC...


	7. Chapter 7

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name. Plus, there's lyrics, of course, and probably other stuff I haven't thought up yet. Like quotes from various sources such as the recaps from Television Without Pity. The pureblood philosophy House explains comes from an awesomely evil icon I saw around LJ. I know **tviokh** has it. 'This is the Night' is from the HP4 soundtrack. Oh, right, and there are incredibly vague spoilers from _The Iron Giant_.

**Summary:** "You could at least start with 'I'm sorry'," Drake had said then, his own face saddened. "I think he'd like that."

**Rating: M**, which you must surely know by now.

**Pairings, etc.** Gregory House/Lisa Cuddy/James Wilson and all that that implies; James Potter/Lily Evans Potter; Gregory House/Regulus Black; Harry Potter/Neville Longbottom; Drake House (Draco Malfoy)/Ginevra Weasley; unrequited Severus Snape/Lily Evans, Gregory House/Lily Evans

**Notes:** A little nod to the Batman fandom in there for those who'll notice. Probably some stuff from movies I've watched lately. And keep in mind that this does take place after The Demons series by **kidsnurse** and does refer to events in that series. Also, there was an essay I read once at the HP Lexicon about Percy's letter to Ron their fourth year and another way it could be interpreted. I've decided to explore that since it's always intrigued me. And MANY APOLOGIES to my fantastically patient beta, **silja-b**, for forgetting to give credit where credit was due. ::terribly embarrassed::

**Warnings:** _YES_, now that the seventh book is out, this is **officially AU**. At least now I have material to work with...so: **DH-COMPLIANT (EXCEPT FOR THAT FRUSTRATING EPILOGUE) SPOILER ALERT!**

Reviews are always encouraged and very much appreciated.

_...Love hurts and sometimes it's a good hurt and it feels like I'm alive...Love sings when it transcends the bad things...Have a heart and try me 'cause without love, I won't survive..._

It was nearly her birthday when the letter first arrived. She recognized that it was for Greg immediately (the owl was a dead giveaway) but ignoring the intruding animal apparently didn't work. She had walked toward her bathroom, intent on going in and closing the door to escape, but it sped forward, pecked her in the back of the head, and dropped the envelope at her feet. She stared at it in an incredulous fashion as it landed on the back of one of her armchairs and began preening itself, as though waiting for something. Sighing irritably, she walked down the hall and knocked on the door to the den.

"You've got mail," she deadpanned, gesturing vaguely toward her living room. Greg was slouching in her desk chair, tapping intently at his laptop's keyboard. An answering doorbell sound told her he was instant messaging someone. Experience told her there were only two people he did that with and since she was standing there, it had to be Jimmy.

"If you two are done bad mouthing me behind my back, your messenger is probably relieving himself on my armchair. Surely you wouldn't want to miss that."

Greg sighed and shook his head, tapping out something before going to stand. "If he wasn't put out with you already, he is now. Post owls don't appreciate being equated with pigeons. They're far better behaved. You're lucky he's not a hippogriff, or you'd probably be bleeding profusely from some random body part. And I wasn't IM'ing Jimmy."

He stood and limped out of the room, glancing back at her and indicating that she should follow.

"Drake IM'ed me, saying he had something he wanted me to see." Lisa blinked for a moment, trying to remember who 'Drake' was, before it suddenly clicked.

"That kid your parents took in..." she ventured and he waved a hand, the other occupied with taking the envelope from the owl.

"My little brother." Those eyes she knew better than her own were dashing over the white paper he held. Something fell out of the bottom fold and Greg caught it before it hit the ground. She watched as he performed the familiar movement of retrieving his wand and gave the small...thing...a tap. It...mutated...into what looked like a photograph. She heard him mumble, "I _knew_ it. Took them long enough."

"You said he was back in England now," she ventured, knowing that outright asking wasn't going to get her anywhere.

"He and his girlfriend, yeah," Greg muttered, an eyebrow raised at the picture. He glanced at her before turning the picture to face her. It was moving, like the one she kept in her office that Greg had taken with a Muggle camera before brewing some kind of potion to develop it.

There were others, in the bedroom, of the three of them together. She kept those locked in her nightstand where not even Greg's industrious fellows could find them.

"What'd he send you?" she asked, tossing caution to the wind. He glanced at her, smirking in that way that both amused and infuriated her, and held the picture out for her to take. The letter followed and she read it through before looking at the photo.

**_Master Drake Timothy House--_**

She took a moment to giggle helplessly at the odd formation of letters her apparent brother-in-law's name made out. "Well, he's acquired your utter lack of concern for appearances. The name 'Drake House' doesn't exactly command respect. And wasn't it something different before?"

"He changed it--it used to be 'Draco Thomas Malfoy', Cuddy," Greg told her quietly and she knew that part of him was daring her to make further jokes of it. Of the situation that led to those circumstances. "And if you think his name now is laughable, it was even funnier back then--which, it isn't, actually--Cuddles."

Lisa takes a moment to work out exactly what he said before having the grace to feel embarrassed and remorseful. It must have shown on her face because the annoyance dropped off his and he continued. "He wants nothing to do with any Malfoys or Blacks." Then Greg made an interesting face that she couldn't describe. "He was rather shocked to find out my mother was a Lovegood, though. Luna's my cousin and, now, his. He used to make fun of her. Called her 'Loony.' Mocked her."

The expression on Greg's face told her exactly what he thought about that. "Anyway," he continued, gesturing toward the photograph in her hands and she looked at it while he continued talking. "Drake's marrying Ginny Weasley. Ginevra. About damned time."

"I take it they've been on-again-off-again?" She asked, a little smile coming to her face, but Greg shook his head.

"She and Drake have had...a bit of a rocky history. The Weasleys weren't the most respected of pureblood families. Like my mom's family's not--too much associating with the 'filthy animal' Muggles. Old-line families with Slytherin ties tend to look down on others who don't share their beliefs--which basically amount to 'Say My Name, Muggle.'" The last bit was snarled and he pantomimed yanking back someone's head to hold them at wandpoint. Abandoning the action, he twirled his cane and slammed the end of it to the ground so that she heard a loud crack as it impacted with her hardwood floor.

"They think we're--that non-magical people are animals?" She flinched as images of Hitler and random Nazis flitted through her mind, her hands clenching into unconscious fists.

Greg shot her a bitter expression of his own and rolled his eyes. "_I_ don't think that, obviously. I'm much more comfortable with thinking of you two as good lays and leaving it at that."

She threw him a filthy look, but faltered at the sad and strangely uncertain expression on his face.

"But after the Second War, people got their heads out of their asses. Or were at least more discreet about it. It started after the First War, but the catastrophe at the Quidditch World Cup proved that plenty of those bastards were ready to do a little light torture when the mood struck them. Now, though..." he trailed off and she didn't have the heart to ask him to give a more in-depth explanation of what he was referring to. Then he looked up again, giving his head a little shake. "Anyway. Drake and Ginny both lost a lot in the War...they...finally gravitated toward one another. Something like that. It's the same with Harry and Neville. Ginny's brother Ron and Hermione Granger were together for a while, but they put that body to bed. They fight all the damned time and Harry was absolutely sick of watching them go back and forth. They finally decided they'd rather keep him as a friend than argue. Priorities, you know."

Lisa thought of Greg's relationship with Stacy, looking again at the letter and picture in her hands, this time examining them more closely.

_...Put to rest what you thought of me while I clean this slate with the hands of uncertainty...And let mercy come and wash away what I've done..._

**_Master Drake Timothy House and Mistress Ginevra Weasley are pleased to invite Doctors Gregory House, Lisa Cuddy, and James Wilson, to our wedding..._**

The details went on to include the time and place of the wedding at Harry Potter's property in London, England, at the end of the summer.

In the photograph, Drake had his arms around a redheaded young woman with green eyes. His hair was cut in what Lisa immediately recognized as the style John House usually wore, but it seemed Greg's brother had drawn the line at whatever John did to make it lie down. Greg liked to say that his father's hair had been shellacked to his forehead and resisted all attempts to tame his hair, letting it do what it wanted most days.

"So your parents took good care of him," Lisa ventured, glancing at the straightbacked posture Drake had probably gained under John House's 'tutelage.'

"My mom wouldn't let him do what he'd done to me. She's learned her lesson, apparently." A faintly venomous glint flashed across his eyes, but then it was gone and he instead looked rather discomfitted.

"They want me to come back to England, of course, for this. I'd have to get measured for dress robes..." Greg ran a hand through his hair and Lisa thought about the striped tie she'd found while searching for one of the morphine patches he kept in his bedroom closet just in case. She banished the thought, afraid he'd know she had found something he'd labored to keep from thinking about and tried to smile.

"Not afraid of a little shopping are you?"

"This isn't just any shopping. It's..." he shivered dramatically. "_Wedding_ shopping. And I don't know what the hell you're so happy about--I'm sure you don't believe that witches are immune to bad bridesmaid dress robes."

Lisa cringed, but the smile she felt building now refused to abate. "Your brother will be glad you're there. I'm sure Ginevra will be, too."

But Greg didn't say anything, simply stroking the post owl who had delivered the letter and handing him some sort of treat. The owl hopped up to his shoulder, nipping him in what appeared to be an affectionate manner before taking off again and soaring out the window.

_...You and I are like oil and water...We've been trying...Trying to mix it up..._

James Wilson rubbed the back of his neck and sighed as he watched House pace back and forth around his office, the steady _thump_ of the cane acting as a sort of beat to the thoughts he imagined were racing around the other man's head.

"He's your brother," Wilson said lightly, a faint smile coming to his lips. "At worst, he'll say something to a donor and Cuddy will want to give him clinic duty--only to remember that while he is a mediwizard, he doesn't work for her and cannot perform clinic duty. Which is when she'll throw the hours he earns at you--a win-win situation for all involved...except you."

House rolled his eyes, "I'm not worried about that--I'm...Drake's coming to visit for a few days, right? I haven't seen him for a while and that's okay, but I've never told anyone about him. Hell, Chase is the only one here who knows he exists and _that_ was purely by chance."

"So what? You don't tell anyone anything unless forced to at gun--or wandpoint." Wilson gestured at House's right arm and the wand he knew was always there. "What's so different about now?"

"Remember when my parents came to visit? Remember how Cameron did everything she could to try and meet them? If she meets Drake, she'll...be Cameron. You know how _I_ am when I have nightmares. Drake..."

Wilson felt his insides sinking as he realized what House was implying. "You're worried she'll give him a panic attack, dredge up bad memories. You don't want that for him."

House shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "It's bad enough trying to deal with what I have--and I didn't even _see_ them..."

He swallowed and stopped in front of wilson's lefthand wall, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against the cool wooden panel at his eye level. He didn't even realize Wil--Jimmy had gotten up until the other man's arm was around his shoulder, tugging him gently to his left side.

He flinched a bit, reflexively preparing to Impeturb the room out of habit, but the leak had been almost three months ago now and most of the hospital was used to the idea of their relationship, even if they didn't agree with it. It had been with great satisfaction that House had punched Ayersman in the face for saying that Cuddy was abusing her powers as Dean and acting in an improper manner. _Implying_ that she was a whore right there in her own office. Wilson had yanked a snarling House backward and calmed both his partners down before turning and sucker punching Ayersman again before anyone had realized it. Ayersman had threatened to sue, saying that he'd have their licenses if Cuddy fired him. House pointed out that he had absolutely no grounds to do so, having viciously slandered the Dean of Medicine before said assault, so he couldn't pretend he was some innocent bystander. Fired or not, he had nothing on them. Ayersman fumed and gingerly examined the rising bruises on his face, glaring viciously when House told him he was being hysterical and to stay the hell out of their business. _That_, he reminded the other doctor, could certainly get him fired.

She hadn't, of course, and she'd flatly refused to allow House to modify his memory but none of them had been on speaking or even cordial terms ever since. If it hadn't been the fact that Ayersman had recently been looking to go into private practice, Cuddy might have cared. She took solace in the fact that he needed her recommendations, if nothing else, were he to try garnering new clientèle. She'd smiled with private satisfaction for a full three weeks afterward as she watched the bruising on Ayersman's face fade slowly, a tiny scar under his eye where House's signet ring that Blythe sent him for his most recent birthday had cut him.

House liked to joke every now and then that the initials 'G.J.C.H.' were etched into Ayersman's pride. Wilson and Cuddy chuckled and ignored him.

But any sign of emotion other than worry and, now, anger had been driven from Greg's face and Jimmy gently maneuvered him over to his couch, sitting Greg down and pushing against his shoulders until he was in a reclined position. "Have a little rest. Lisa will call when he gets here. She told Brenda what Drake looks like. I...I'll go talk to Cameron."

"Because that worked so well the last time--or the time before that," Greg murmured, frowning slightly and blinking up at the ceiling.

"Look, I'll--" Jimmy hesitated and turned back, striding forward to drop a quick kiss to Greg's forehead. Or that had been his intention, anyway. Greg caught him by surprise, taking hold of the back of his neck and biting his lower lip, pulling it into his mouth and chuckling quietly as Jimmy moaned.

"I can't talk to her if you won't let me out of here--preferably without fresh fuel for the rumor mill."

"It's not a rumor, Jim Jims--it's established fact. Go forth Saint Jimmy--defend my good name."

Jimmy snorted and kissed Greg's forehead again before putting his lab coat back on and leaving Greg to his attempt at a nap.

_...Before you put my body in the cold ground...Take some time to warm it with your hand..._

Drake strode into Greg's hospital, pausing to remove his sunglasses and straighten the cloth jacket he wore over his t-shirt. He ran a hand through his hair, still getting re-accustomed to its renewed length, as their father had enforced a strict rule of American military regulation haircuts while he'd lived with him and their mother. He sighed as he felt the nerve-splitting sensation of his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. Scowling deeply, he yanked it out of his pocket and sighed as he recognized his parents' home phone number on the other end. He flipped it open and tried to speak in as calm a tone as he could while walking over to lean against one wall.

"Mum, I only just got here, you know. I haven't even gone two steps."

"I wanted to make sure you're alright, dear," Blythe House's voice replied and he marveled at the way she always seemed able to calm him with just the sound of her voice. Though he supposed she'd had plenty of practice with Greg and the way he'd always been. "You're there in the lobby? You can see the clinic? Lisa's office is just through there."

"Mum," he said then in as quiet a tone as he could, laughing despite his nervousness. "I have Apparated before. I even looked at a map of the tri-state area before I got here like Greg suggested. He was right about memorizing the locations in a fixed capacity making it easier to arrive on target--I didn't even Splinch myself crossing state lines. But you _knew_ that."

"Yes, I did," Mum agreed, chuckling a bit and telling him to stop dawdling in the lobby and go see his brother before he ran away from the hospital in his nightly bid for freedom.

Drake laughed and said goodbye, snapping his phone closed and breathing a sigh of contentment. She was really very good at that, calming people. He knew it was one of the reasons Greg loved her as much as he did. Knew, with a slight pang of anger, that it was why their father loved her, as well. John House had never mistreated him but he'd gleaned enough his first week in his new home to figure out why. He'd heard his mother swearing to his father that she wasn't going to let him sow misery in another son after running so afoul of the first. She'd sworn that the same conditions she'd set down when Greg had been younger still held. He hadn't found out what those conditions entailed for nearly a year and once he had, it had taken all the restraint he'd had not to curse John House into oblivion.

He hadn't and John had sighed, a mix of regret and sorrow on his face as he'd watched his foster son lower his wand and turn away from him, his back rigid, his hands shaking.

_"So is--is that why you don't call him? Is that why he doesn't call you? He'll only speak to Mum--and he'll barely look you in the eye whenever you're in the same room together. You won't even try to fix it?"_

_John had sighed then, himself, leaning back in the armchair that Drake had watched him sink into countless times by then. "You don't understand...you're just..."_

_"I'm twenty now, John," Drake had reminded his father at the time, dropping the 'sir' he'd been using to address the older man. "I've been of age for three years--and before you start, I'll remind you that I've seen just as many horrors as you have, so you can shove that 'you don't know what it's like' nonsense. I've watched innocent people tortured and made the sport of sadistic monsters who thought them mindless animals, beneath them in every way--only there for their amusement, to serve their vile whims. I was fourteen, then. When I was sixteen, I was ordered to kill a man or I, myself, would be killed--my mother went to my former guardian to beg for my life. She knew I'd fail and that Voldemort __knew_ it. He just wanted to get me out of the way. To make me pay for Lucius' embarrassments and inadequacies--because he didn't see me as someone useful. He only sees what's useful and what's not--he _enjoys_ destroying what's not...listening to what's 'useless' scream as they are eviscerated. Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape gave their lives for me--don't_ tell me I don't know what it's like--being groomed to destroy. To murder."_

_His voice had gone cold then, his face forcibly impassive and John House had looked at him, his normally hard and glaring green eyes now soft and sad. "I know...I...but what the hell do you expect me to say to 'im, hm? 'Sorry I beat the shit outta ya, son--hope we can be friends or somethin'?'"_

_Dad had snorted derisively and Drake had been able to see the self-hatred rolling off his thoughts like a sign. "Hardly."_

_"You could at least start with 'I'm sorry'," Drake had said then, his own face saddened. "I think he'd like that." He'd watched his father for a moment more before turning and going upstairs to his bedroom. He hadn't slept that night but that was routine by then. It had been relearning how to sleep that had been the hardest part. Relearning how to live._

_...Is it hard understanding I'm incomplete...A life that's so demanding, I get so weak...A love that's so demanding...I can't speak..._

"Hey, kid!" A woman's voice jolted Drake out of his thoughts and he froze, his eyes coming sharply into focus as a woman dressed in what he recognized as nurses' scrubs waved a hand in front of his face. "Are you okay? Do you need to see a doctor?"

Drake took a deep breath and released it slowly. He recognized this one from Greg's description. He called her 'Evil Nurse Brenda'. Her ID, he noticed, said **Previn** and her dark hair was tied back in a ponytail.

"Um, no--no thank you. I'm just here to visit my br--someone. He said I should sign in with this particular nurse--er, you--" When he'd shot Greg a disbelieving glance, his older brother elaborated that Nurse Previn was Cuddy's second in command and they trusted her, if nothing else, not to spread his identity around the hospital once she found out. "At the front desk and get a visitor's pass and to ask you to tell the Dean that I was here."

Nurse Previn gave him a quick glance over before shaking her head and going to the large desk not far to the left. From behind it she retrieved a styrofoam cup and filled it with water before coming back to hand it to him. "Drink this, then you can sign in. It's water. It should help."

Drake nodded and did as she told him, wishing for her to do as he asked so he could just see Greg and get this visit over with. He'd never been to Greg's job before--had never been a patient or even a visitor at Saint Mungo's even, until he'd gone with Luna, Harry, and Neville to visit Neville's parents in the Long-Term Care ward. He'd learned long ago to treat his own wounds; had been permitted to begin Healer training even after all this time and was deemed a professional Mediwizard after finally taking his certification tests at his mother's behest. She'd told him that if he planned to re-enter the wizarding world, then he was going to have to get an honest job because he didn't have an embarrassment of riches to fall back on anymore and feeling useful would help his nerves. It had been Greg's recommendation and Pensieve memories of that training that had helped him secure a formal Apothecary license, developing new potions and salves for magical medical emergencies for various magical hospitals. He wished he'd remembered to bring some Calming Draught with him and cursed his lack of foresight.

He drained the remaining drops of water in the cup and handed it back to the waiting nurse, smiling more for her benefit than his own before following her to the desk and being presented with a sign-in sheet like Greg had told him about. He took the pen in his left hand and signed his name over the first free space. Nurse Previn took the clipboard back from him, glancing at it before pausing and looking back at him.

"You're related to Dr. House?" the surprise evident in her voice.

Drake scowled and sighed. Damn, he'd wanted to avoid this. "He's my brother," he said quietly, itching to just Disapparate and leave. But he couldn't, of course. Greg was expecting him and promises were very important to Houses, he knew. Breaking a promise was tantamount to telling a lie and if there was anything he, his brother, their mother, or especially their father didn't do, it was lie to one another. He found it comforting, really, after a lifetime of being lied to and manipulated again and again and again.

"I can page him for you," Nurse Previn offered, but Drake shook his head.

"He said to sign in and ask you to get the Dean. If you would..." he trailed off and she watched him for a second and he knew it was because she thought he'd start mocking her like Greg would. But he didn't know her at all and certainly wasn't going to start trading insults with her on any sort of unknown principle.

She nodded and rolled her eyes a tiny bit, handing him a tag with his name scribbled across it and watching him unpeel and stick it to his chest before coming back around the side of the desk and leading him over to what he knew was one of Greg's partners, Lisa Cuddy's office. She knocked on the glass with the back of her hand and stood back as Lisa looked up to see who it was.

He could see her complaining vaguely through muted lips--Greg had explained that her office was soundproofed with special muggle-made material that was sort of like Imperturbing a room. Lisa threw the door open and he caught the tail end of what he was sure was a rebuke of his brother, with Lisa wondering what the hell House had done now.

"I swear to God, Brenda, if you tell me House stole or superglued something--"

She caught herself short when she noticed him and Drake was pleased to see a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "Wrong House," he chuckled, turning to watch as Nurse Previn began walking back to her station.

Lisa gave him a small smile and gestured for him to head into her office. He walked in, listening as she shut the door behind them, and stopped immediately as he noticed Greg's lanky form sprawled over one of Lisa's couches, dressed in scrubs himself and plainly asleep.

"He didn't sleep very much last night," Lisa told him, avoiding touching him as she returned to her desk. "He's been worried about you. Don't tell him I told you. He'd deny everything and insist that he was a heartless bastard. He sicced Jimmy on his fellows this morning on your behalf. Cameron's afraid to look at you the wrong way, I think. Chase remembers you. He and Foreman won't ask questions."

She smiled softly at him and he returned it before letting his eyes rest on his brother's form again. Greg didn't wake and he was glad. He could see lines and grey hairs that weren't there the last time they'd seen each other and the thick tangle that usually was Greg's thoughts was even more tightly bundled than usual, even in sleep. Minutes passed and Greg's right hand came up to ghost over his right thigh, his face creasing with fear for half a second before relaxing again as his hand found his leg. A new habit, he surmised, glancing at Lisa for confirmation.

_...You're the flame that burns me...So I know that I'm still alive..._

"He's still getting used to the diminished pain--it'll be a while before he stops doing that," Lisa told him and Drake nodded, remembering Greg's lengthy letters and coded messages about nightmares and conversion disorder pain.

Greg had sent him an email the week before about a possible visit along with an acceptance of his and Ginny's invitation. He'd readily replied and packed, bringing Ginny to stay with him at their parents' home in Nyack before Apparating this afternoon, New York time, to Princeton. Ginny hadn't complained, feeling the same way whenever one of her remaining brothers was on the continent for a visit. Particularly George, who had been injured in the War. She told him that even after everything Percy had done, even with all the deception and the hidden agenda, and his seeming unwillingness to believe the truth...the truth of what he'd been doing for them...if he were still alive now, she'd see him in a heartbeat. She'd forgive him his lies and cover-up, would welcome him back with open arms. She would hate Tom Riddle with every bone in her body for the rest of her days, not only for what he'd tried to steal from her, but from what he'd succeeded in taking. Her stability, her sense of safety was gone now and would never return. For that and for Greg's (and Harry's) pain for the loss of Lily and Sirius and Regulus, he hated the Dark Tosser and his Death Eaters (and damnable Lucius Malfoy) more than he ever thought he'd be able to.

"Drake," Lisa's voice quietly prodded him from his thoughts and he realized she had practice with Greg, too. He decided then and there that Jimmy would probably have the same ability so it was useless to be surprised. "You're tired."

It was a statement, they both knew, a fact practically writ in stone.

He nodded, seeing no reason to deny it, and she handed him a blanket, gesturing to her other couch which was vacant. He stretched out, wincing at the (never truly gone) aches in his back.

"We can get dinner when you two wake up," she assured him before going back to whatever she'd been doing. He started to nod, but fell asleep before he finished. This was family, he knew. Like his father told him often (his mother laughing and calling his father silly), he was a House now and he was home.

_Don't mean to scare you but I've not been sleeping lately and phone calls aren't doing much to help...So, if it's all the same, I'd just ask to never have to offer explanation or excuse again..._

"Well, one thing they both seem to have in common is that they could do with a lifetime prescription of temazepam," Jimmy remarked quietly, his gaze sweeping over Greg and Drake as they each slept fitfully. He turned back toward Lisa's office refrigerator and placed the remaining containers of sweet and sour chicken and egg foo young on the top shelf. The House brothers--God, it still felt a little weird to say that--could eat whenever they managed to wake up enough. Knowing Greg, it'd be at some completely ridiculous hour.

Lisa nodded in agreement, taking another bite of her egg roll. She could only guess regarding Drake's sleeping patterns, but she had Greg's down to a science and if he was anything like his older brother, the younger man would awaken and immediately stumble toward the refrigerator.

Food first, salutations...if he remembered. He usually didn't.

"I've seen Greg sleep in the middle of a train station, a bus station, an airport..." Lisa grinned at the memories of the past twenty years, no doubt remnants of a military brat's upbringing. "Say nothing of his ability to entertain himself in any of those places for hours. Now if only he'd pretend he was in a place of transport at all other times, we'd be all set--and you wouldn't have to worry about being pranked anymore."

Jimmy scowled, popping a chunk of beef into his mouth. "I don't see why I'm his favorite target. It's completely unfair. And...he doesn't even care enough to spare his own possessions. This is a man who made me pee all over _his own couch._ He's that desperate for amusement."

"Oh, shut up. You love him just like I do."

"He's damned lucky," Jimmy pretended to snipe, but his grin gave him away.

"So I've heard," Greg's roughened voice grumbled as he sat up. "You've been talking to my dad, I see."

"I haven't actually," Jimmy countered, gesturing toward the refrigerator. Greg stumbled into Lisa's small kitchen and removed his marked carton of sweet and sour chicken. "And you owe me fifteen dollars."

"Yeah, yeah," Greg dismissed, sticking his food in the microwave and closing the door as quietly as he could. He hated how loudly the door on Lisa's microwave closed, knowing Drake was going to awaken. Sure enough, the loud _clack_ of the latch reverberated unpleasantly through the air and Drake was up like a shot, halfway through the door before Greg managed to catch him.

"Drake, stop. It's Greg. You're okay," Greg's words were quick, concise, and Drake sank backward into Greg's chest, breathing shallowly as he started to take in his surroundings.

"I...forgot..." Drake whispered, letting Greg lead him back to the couch he'd vacated and sit him down again. "...draught..."

"I know," Greg told him, handing him his own container of chicken, knowing Drake liked his cold. He turned and stalked back to the microwave and set his on a minute, thirty seconds. "We can give you diazepam."

"I don't...what is that?" Drake looked confused and looked at Greg with a slightly dazed expression.

"Valium. It's a sedative. If you take it in pill form, you still have about thirty minutes to eat something."

"I'll go back to sleep," Drake said, staring into his chicken.

"It'll be like everything's on mute. It won't touch you. It's nice and you can go back to the draught after you get back home."

"Mum will be mad," Drake muttered, poking his chicken with the chopsticks Greg handed him.

"No, she won't. After you fell asleep, Lisa called Mom and Dad and told them you were staying here for the night."

"Mum worries," Drake sighed, wishing he hadn't fallen asleep.

"That's what moms are supposed to do," Lisa said softly from over at her desk.

"Dad'll say I should have been prepared," Drake protested again and Lisa faintly noticed the way his shoulders were starting to visibly knot up again. She doubted they ever completely relaxed.

"And Mom'll tell him to shut the hell up. He knows better than to think you want this."

"He knows you don't want it, either."

"He's got a funny way of showing it," Greg frowned and Lisa glanced at Jimmy, knowing he too felt distinctly out of place now.

"He's afraid," Drake said softly, finally taking a bite of his food. Greg glanced at her and she reached into her desk to pull a sample blister pack of Valium out of one of the drawers. She removed one of the pills and handed it to Greg, who gave it to Drake and watched him swallow it.

"Eat your dinner. We'll talk more tomorrow."

"Ginny'll be happy to see you," Drake muttered, a faint smile coming to his face. "She says she hasn't anyone to properly insult in far too long. Apparently, I'm losing my touch."

"Well, removing slurs from your vocabulary does that. It's good. You'll read the dictionary now. Work harder. Just make sure you don't cast any aspersions on her by calling her the male offspring of a female dog or imply any untoward relationships with her mother and you're good to go."

"Sage advice from big brother," Jimmy teased, unable to resist and Greg crumpled up a napkin before lobbing it at his head.

_...I asked her to stay, but she wouldn't listen..._

She stood back and tried to keep from smiling as Drake followed Greg into the Diagnostics department conference room the next morning. The younger man looked happier and healthier than he had the night before, which she attributed to actually managing a decent night's sleep. He walked with Greg like Jimmy did, slowing his steps to align with his in speed, if not regularity. Greg would mutter something or give a little glance and a wicked little grin would flit across both their faces.

"You two behave," she called out, pressing the down button on the elevator with her elbow. Drake nodded and Greg gave a careless little wave with his free hand. Then the elevator announced its arrival and she stepped inside, pressing the **L** button and wishing fervently to whoever was listening that those two didn't set her hospital on fire for kicks.

House caught a case around three pm and she delivered the file personally, shoving it against his chest and ignoring Drake, Foreman, and Chase's chuckles.

The fellows had gone off to lunch, Chase firmly steering Cameron away from Drake and out the door. House had to remember to reward him somehow. Perhaps a week off from mockery would suffice.

His brother's fellows gone, Drake now sat at Greg's conference table with he and Jimmy, picking at the reuben they'd bought him in the cafeteria.

"You need to eat, Dragonbreath," Greg murmured softly, reaching up to run a hand over Drake's hair. "Every time you miss a meal, Mom kills her oldest son. Please. Think of me."

Drake rolled his eyes. "Stop calling me Dragonbreath. You're obsessed with the idea that you're being persecuted, aren't you?" Drake asked, smiling again and picking up his plate once more. "And it's funnier when it's God, masturbation, and kittens being eaten by Japanese puppet monsters."

"My violent spearing on the end of Mom's fire poker amuses you, young one? Forgive me for having a sense of self-preservation."

"You're forgiven--and stop calling me 'young one', too. I'm not--"

"You're the same age as our fellows and we call them 'kids'. Mom and Dad call me, Lisa, and Jimmy _their_ kids."

"Everything's relative with you, isn't it?"

"Yep. Nothing--not even time, as you well know--is a fixed construct." Then Greg paused. "Well, the speed of light is, and...actually, a whole lot of things, but what do I care--I'm trying to win an argument..." he waved a hand, dismissing the topic. "Anyway, very little is immutable. Time, like I said, can be broken and reformed."

"Well, hell, I knew that. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have proven that twenty times over. Even Portkey licenses--or lack thereof--aren't a guarantee."

"So you see my point. Just keep doing what you have been. You're fine. You don't need to prove that to anyone."

"What about myself? What about you?"

"What the hell do you think you need to prove to me? Your proficiency with sarcasm is all I've ever cared about."

Drake laughed, elbowing Greg gently in the side. "Seriously."

"Seriously? Remember when we met?"

Drake scowled slightly. "You were convinced I didn't know how to flush a toilet--called it your version of a crash course in Muggle Studies. God, I wanted to curse you."

Jimmy laughed then, imagining how it must have been. "He does have that effect on people--making them wish violence on his person."

Greg rolled his eyes and ruffled Drake's hair, silently urging him to eat. His younger brother only pretended to object to the gesture, he knew, and relished personal contact after a lifetime of being looked upon only as a means to an end. Even Narcissa Malfoy, who had claimed to adore the boy, hadn't shown him any real affection. Her idea of showing her love had been buying him opulent gifts for the purpose of unveiling them in front of the entire student body at Hogwarts. Food, he knew, was a necessity--not a reward.

Thankfully, Narcissa hadn't been as bad with Drake as Petunia had been with her own son or Harry. Even the thought of the polar extremes they were shoved onto was enough to have him swearing a few oaths against her even now. Scowling slightly, he reached over and picked up his bottle of butterbeer (Draco had been kind enough to bring several bottles, most of which were now in the refrigerator) and drained the last of it.

"You've changed. You're not that same little simpering asshole. You're a man. And, judging from the accuracy of Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hexes, I'm glad you've wised up."

Drake smiled a bit, finally taking a bite of his food and smothering a laugh as Greg promptly stole what looked like half of Jimmy's lunch.

Cameron sat down across from Foreman and Chase at the diner near the hospital that most of the personnel frequented when they tired of the cafeteria fare.

Chase sighed heavily and glanced at Foreman, knowing what was coming.

"I'm not telling you anything," he said the second she opened her mouth.

"I wasn't--"

Both of her colleagues gave her a look and she wilted slightly. "I wasn't going to ask much. I just..." she looked at Chase, a tiny frown creasing her brow. "Neither of you are the least bit curious about them."

Foreman chuckled, shaking his head. "You still haven't learned your lesson from last time! Honestly, if we hadn't brought you here, you'd be up watching them eating lunch!"

Off Chase's inquiring look, Foreman filled him in, deliberately ignoring the mortified expression that stole over Cameron's face. "When House's parents were visiting, I found Cameron lurking--"

Cameron scowled, then, and smacked his shoulder. "I was not lurking!"

Foreman chuckled, "Fine, you weren't lurking--obsessively shadowing--"

Cameron's eyes flashed in anger as Chase laughed aloud. She went to stand up, but Chase stopped her, taking hold of her arm and gently maneuvering her back into her seat. "Cameron, it was nearly two years ago. It'd be pointless for me to tease you about it now."

Cameron visibly deflated, sending one last glare at Foreman before resuming eating her fries.

"Look, the point is, she was trying to watch House interacting with his parents," Foreman said quietly. "In her defense, I suppose it could be under the cover of a sociology project...if she were in that field. But she's an immunologist. A doctor. So, it smacks of stalkery, not unbiased observation."

Cameron stabbed at her fries with her fork. "I'm over him," she muttered, frowning at her plate.

"We believe you," Chase said, surprising her. "We believe you don't have any romantic feelings about House. I don't think you ever did."

And then both of them were watching him now. Chase shrugged and leaned back in his chair, taking a long sip of his iced tea. "I think you'd--hell, none of us have ever met _anyone_ like House. I don't think any of us ever will again. But there's no use in you driving yourself mad trying to find out everything there is to know about him, because it's impossible. He's guarded, he's quiet--"

They both looked at _him_ this time but his expression didn't change. "He really is. During my interview, he asked me exactly five questions. And I won't be repeating them, if that's what you're hoping. For the next week, until he felt I was settled in and knew the layout of the hospital, could do what he needed me to do...he never said a word. He's never been one for salutations, a little small talk...sometimes, when it was just he and I--the others I've worked with wanted to get out of his way as soon as possible, but..."

Chase shrugged again. "I like the quiet of the hospital after everything dies down at night. It's nice and if I needed to study something, House had a ready resource of material for me to use. He never even spoke for that. I didn't have to, either. I just found this Sharpied note that said I better put everything back where I got it. Anyway, you two think he talks all the time, that he delights in causing other people discomfort and likes to piss them off. That last part is true, to an extent but, if you notice, he doesn't even do that every day and usually it's worst when he's in a lot of pain. Sometimes, he locks himself in his office just to avoid getting into trouble. I've been here for years and I don't know very much at all. And I've never felt the need. He doesn't ask about my personal business and I don't ask about his. I've noticed habits of his, but I've noticed other things, too. 'Everybody lies?'"

The other two now distinctly rolled their eyes at this, having heard it over and over again.

"Give me five--no," Chase held up two fingers. "Give me _two_ examples where House has lied to either of you in earnest."

Cameron and Foreman each stared at him, slow expressions of astonishment coming over them. Cameron was the first to shake herself out of her surprise.

"But you don't even wonder," Cameron said quietly, taking his words in--he believed--for the first time. "What the rest of the Houses are like? And now, we find out he has an adopted brother..."

"I don't have to be curious about them, Cameron," Chase said softly, sipping his iced tea before taking a bite of his cheeseburger.

"You've met them before," Foreman filled in and Cameron started to glare, but Chase raised a hand, this time a slightly angered look coming over his face.

"You asked me if I wasn't even curious about them. I told you I'm curious about crocodiles, but I don't stick my head in their mouths. I didn't give you a yes or no answer and I certainly didn't lie, so you can stop looking at me like I've thrown petrol on you and lit you on fire. I don't have to be curious about House's parents because I've met them. I met his brother, too. I'd just started here, then. His mum's awesome, actually, Foreman. You can put that 'only a mother' crap to bed. She's really nice and she and his brother the only people besides Drs. Wilson and Cuddy who I've ever seen him smile or laugh around."

Chase sighed, finally, and finished his food. "But my point is that Wilson was right. If you have any respect for House and his family at all, you'll let them alone. If Drake wants to talk to you, he will, but don't expect him to welcome you with open arms. He may be adopted, but he's still a House. And we don't know who he was before that. Accept the fact that you don't have the right to know everything about them and move on. It's safer that way."

"I'm not going to break, Chase," Cameron scowled, rolling her eyes. She distinctly remembered having a conversation like this with Wilson. It was getting to be annoying. But then she remembered Wilson's response.

"You don't think I'll be the one getting hurt." This time, instead of being mystified, she was annoyed.

Foreman was watching Chase with a raised eyebrow now, clearly dubious.

"No, I don't," Chase simply said, getting up and bussing his tray before returning to the table. "Are you two coming, or not? We _have_ got a case."

Foreman stood and threw away the remains of his food, going forward to the door and walking out. Cameron stood there for a moment, as though she were fighting some internal battle. Chase frowned then and came back over, leaning down and whispering to her.

"Do you _want_ to push him--push _them_ or something? See how far you can go before something happens?"

Cameron looked at him to see his eyes narrowed down at her. "I..."

His voice and face hardened again, then. "Don't. He's not an experiment. Nobody is."

With that, he turned around and followed Foreman back to the hospital. Cameron stood a while longer before going back to the counter and ordering a bottle of orange juice to go. It was enough of an excuse to delay her return at least a little and she took it.

_...We bit our lips...She looked at the window...Over tiny balls of napkin paper...I played a quick game of chess with the salt and pepper shakers...And I could see clearly, an indelible line was drawn..._

Leaving the fellows to sort out the lab work for the night, Greg and Jimmy had taken Drake back to the apartment, stopping momentarily in Cuddy's office again, the younger man snickering under his breath as House pretended to commiserate with Lisa over the masses of paperwork she'd been swamped with. She sent him a glare as a goodbye and he kissed the top of her head. "Love you," Drake saw him mouth as he straightened up and backed away so Jimmy could have a turn.

They were now in the living room, watching DVDs and throwing projectiles at the screen whenever someone said something stupid. Tonight, their target was 'Kent Mansley, United States Government' from _The Iron Giant_ and Greg was particularly relishing the scene where Annie Hughes slammed Mansley's face in the bathroom doorjamb.

The phone rang, then, and Jimmy and Drake both watched with the DVD paused as Greg waited until the answering machine picked up.

_...If you feel you've reached this number in error--go with it. Hang up--_

"Gregory, answer the phone," Dad's voice drowned out the end of the falsely cheerful message and House scowled.

"Hello, to you, too."

Jimmy snorted, shooting him a look that plainly stated that he could hardly talk.

Drake reached over and pressed the speakerphone button.

"Dad," he answered before Greg could speak, clearly pretending to be annoyed. "I wanted to hear the end of Greg's helpful instructions for those unwieldy enough with a telephone to dial this number--you talked over it!"

"Those so-called 'instructions' are rude and unnecessary, Drake."

"I think that was the point, sir." Drake was grinning wickedly and Jimmy was surprised his voice didn't betray his amusement.

John House sighed audibly. "Drake, I don't have time for this. Where's your brother?"

"Here," Greg said finally, his voice monotone and his face flat. "You wanted something?"

"I--your momma--"

"You and Mom are not the same entity!"

"You and Mum are not the same entity!"

Both Gregory and Drake House's voices snapped at the same time, and Jimmy's line of vision jerked away from the television, where it had been trained, to watch as their father's reply filtered out over the speaker.

"I only meant--"

"You always do that," Drake said coldly, his fierce silver eyes trained on the small plastic machine with such ferocity that Jimmy was afraid it might burst into flames. "Say Mum wants to tell Greg something, or _Mum's_ afraid that Greg's sick or been hurt, or Mum..." he stalked toward the machine and Jimmy could feel a hum along his skin, like something was vibrating. It was the same when Greg got angry and he shivered.

"Why the bloody hell can't you just say you want to talk to Greg? Stop being a coward, Dad. It's hypocritical and Greg deserves better than that."

Drake snatched up the phone and turned on his heel, walking back and thrusting it into Greg's chest. Greg scowled and put the phone to his ear. Jimmy watched as Drake folded his arms and stood patiently until Greg pinched the bridge of his nose, obviously interrupting.

"Dad. We're coming home. Do me a favor and practice your lecture before we get there. That seems to be the only way you can speak to me properly. I don't have all day, after all."

With that, he hung up and handed the phone back to Drake, swearing in German under his breath.

"_My mother_," Greg told Jimmy then, his voice heavily laden with sarcasm. "Would like us all to come for a visit. _My mother_ wants to make sure I've been recovering well. Wants to see how I'm doing. Plus, there's all this 'wedding nonsense'...Ginny's been enchanting stuff to follow him and hit him over the head whenever he says something stupid. He has a black eye and a cut on his cheek."

"He didn't say all that," Drake smirked. "Ginny did in the background."

Greg nodded. "And Mom's been letting her screw around with the Wireless--Dad hates the Weird Sisters. Duh."

Greg frowned, then, and lumbered to his feet, his right hand gripping the cane tightly, Jimmy watching as he stumped away into their bedroom.

"He's not that angry," Drake said quietly, his voice sure. Jimmy gave him a perplexed look.

"Is there something about Gregory House's body language that I haven't managed to learn yet?"

"No, he was well hacked off, you're right about that. But he wasn't mad enough to keep from singing 'This is the Night' under his breath."

Jimmy smiled, then, getting up to follow Greg.

Drake picked his plate back up, on the verge of putting a pierogi in his mouth when he heard something suspicious. He raised his voice and leaned back to carry it as far as it could go.

"I'll just be staying out here on the couch--hoping desperately that you remember to cast the appropriate spells that would ensure I can sleep soundly..."

There was no reply. He glanced back just in time to see a momentary blue glow and sighed in relief before unpausing the DVD and continuing to watch.

Greg made him some Calming Draught earlier and he stared at the softly steaming mug on the coffee table. He finished his dinner and picked up the mug, wondering about Hogarth and the Giant's conversations about souls. Wondering where those of so many people he'd known--most of them unspeakably evil--who'd died were now. He didn't like the idea of them floating around in the air, being breathed in and out by those innocents they would have considered fun and games. He sipped his draught and hoped they burned in Hell.

_...And the clouds above blew closer, looking so dissatisfied...But the heartless winds kept blowing, blowing..._

**1999**

Snape sat next to House on his family's den room floor, the strange sort of companionable silence they hadn't shared in years having settled around them.

"You'll take care of him," Snape asked quietly and House was sorely tempted to snark back, but something in him wouldn't let it out.

"Yes, Severus," he said after some moments' pause. "My mom will treat him like he's her own. My dad might, too--he better not."

Snape gave a dark little chuckle, then, and when he spoke next, House heard the definite bitter tone in his voice. "He and my father would have had much to talk about, I imagine."

House shook his head, remembering the way Severus had been dressed before changing into their robes on the train. "My dad would have kicked your dad's ass for making you walk around like that. Hell, Lily, Regulus, and I all would have."

Snape sighed, then, and House could see him hunching over, his hands clenching the carpet beneath him as sobs began to fight their way forward.

House frowned and glanced around, waving his wand and Imperturbing the room.

"You told me..." Snape gasped, tears starting to wend their way down his face. "When you'd hexed Potter that first day in the hall...when he called me 'Snivellus'..."

"That's what friends do," House answered, remembering and frowning. "Because it _is_, you idiot."

"The look on his face. I guess he didn't expect you to be able to hex him yet. He didn't know the bleeding prodigy, Gregory House, obviously..." Snape chuckled a bit before his thin, pale face crumpled and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I...God, I betrayed you...I--"

House cut him off, "Made up for it." His tone dared his _friend_ to say otherwise.

"You say it as if it's so _simple_..." Snape swiped an arm across his face. "You weren't there, Greg..."

Snape hadn't called him that in years.

"She was...she was being who she always was. What we loved her for. And I threw it back in her face. Because of my stupid, bloody pride and..._Potter_...I just _hated_ him."

"You weren't alone in that department, which you good and well know."

"I called her a Mud...blood..." Severus moaned, his hands in his hair. "I tried...I wanted so badly to apologize. I was going to camp outside that portrait, damn it. She came down only because of what Macdonald told her I was threatening to do. God, Greg, the _look_ on her face. She hated me. And I deserved it."

"You did," Greg said, the image as clear in his mind as if he'd been there himself. Severus was making no effort at all to hide his thoughts.

"You said shit about her that if I'd been there--if Regulus had been there...fuck Potter, we'd have cursed you so thoroughly it'd've taken Madam Pomfrey _weeks_ to sort you out."

Severus looked at him, then, a mystified expression on his face.

"Because she was our friend--you were our friend. We hated what we could see you becoming. Do you know how many times Regulus told me about shit Mulciber and Avery were doing to the younger years and you just sitting back and watching? I _know_ you, Severus. You found that as repulsive as we all did. What stopped you doing anything?"

"I...I was one of them," he said slowly, a bitter chuckle coming to his lips. "I wasn't _supposed_ to do anything. You and I, Greg...we stand out so much we actually start to blend. You slouch because you hate being tall. You can't help being quicker on the uptake--you don't even know _how_ to slow down. And I wasn't like the rest of them--rich, spoiled little curs that they were...and they knew it...but we kept our heads down, didn't we? You, me, Regulus...Lily. Regulus was...Sirius' younger brother--he had to be the bigger, better Slytherin that his brother had refused--so he could do the work and none would suspect--even Kreacher. Maybe that's what drew us all together. Our double lives."

"Our double lives are killing us," Greg affirmed without emotion. "One by one."

The silence descended again and it was quiet for a while until Severus sighed, "How I wish I could have come to Lily's house with you that Christmas holiday. She'd written me that night after her parents got your mother's letter--I guess it was the night your father beat the piss out of you for having the nerve not to like moving."

Greg said nothing, the images sharp as photographs, coming back to him.

"But my father...I'd gotten in my own bit of trouble and my mother wasn't nearly so brave as yours. And she'd given up magic."

"My mom knew. She knew I wouldn't be seeing you or Regulus. She knew how your families were. She told me to just enjoy the time I'd have with Lily. I guess it was because she knew it was only one-half the fun she thought I should have been having."

"You and I..." Severus looked up at the ceiling. "We've been hiding a long time, haven't we?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't happen to remember who's It, would you?"

"Never mind that, I just want to get to the safe place."

"There is no safe place," Greg reminded him and Snape gave a great sniff.

"Potter asked about you at Lily's wedding. Called you 'Snivellus.' Wondered how I could get on with you, but Wormtail set my fucking teeth on edge. I guess we know why now, don't we?"

Snape scowled and nodded miserably, muttering, "Son of a bitch."

"You're going back to it," Greg had asked and Severus had clutched his arm where Greg knew the Mark had burned. "That _thing's_ going to kill you."

Snape nodded. "I have promises to keep. And what life, exactly, do I have to give? I might as well have drunk unicorn blood."

Greg felt his stomach clench, understanding. "I know."

"Something tells me that years from now, you'll still expect that this has all been faked. Or that we were more clever than we are. And right now...You still hate me."

"Yes," Greg told him, because to speak otherwise would be a lie. Houses did not lie. "I hate it more."

"Why? Surely, I had free will..."

"Oh, shut the fuck up, will you?" Greg asked desperately. "Flay yourself later if you want, but don't expect me to do it for you. I can't. Voldemort didn't just take Lily and Regulus from me. That sadistic, murdering son of a fucking...manticore--"

"Manticore?" House could feel Snape's raised eyebrow and elbowed him in the gut, taking satisfaction in the sharp grunt he heard in return.

"Fuck you. The analogy fits, asshole. The point is Voldemort took you, too. You and I know perfectly well I'm never going to see you again. I just...I need to know that whatever you did wasn't for...it wasn't because you were ordered..."

"It was an agreement," Severus said, his voice becoming muffled with tears again. "He made me promise. He'd been careless...that curse was going to kill him within the year and..."

"He asked you to save him, yourself and, most of all, Draco."

"He's just a boy. You can see that much."

They were no longer glancing at each other, but staring at the room around them.

"I can."

"So is...Harry. Dumbledore was no less manipulative than...Voldemort. He simply cloaked his in the guise of best intentions."

"I told Regulus but, no. He was determined. Fucking generals. The lower ranks are always first."

"Sheep led to slaughter by the shepherd meant to guide them."

"Are we talking militarial or biblical? Because I'm getting confused."

"Why not both? They're just as apt."

"You don't believe in God."

"You don't know my beliefs anymore than I know yours."

"I guess not."

"Dear me, Gregory House, admitting he might not know something."

"I do have my wand, you know. I could easily send you off with a little parting gift."

"I'll remember you by it."

"Thanks. Potter asked me why I got on with you and not Pettigrew."

Snape was still used to his rapid change of topic, it seemed, because he nodded.

"I lied."

"You never lie."

"Lies of omission are still lies, Sev, you know that. I _didn't tell him_ that the reason I could tolerate you was because I knew you loved her just as much as I did. I can't say who loved her most, but it was a close race, wasn't it?"

"We all lost," Severus said and then he got to his feet, going down the hall, through the house and to open the door. He stood on the porch and turned back to see Greg standing before the open door.

"Tell your mother I said...I'm sorry. And...know I'm sorry, too. Know we're haunted. I, at least, deserve it."

And then Severus turned on his heel and disappeared forever.

_I dreamed I was missing...You were so scared...But no one would listen...'Cause no one else cared..._

_...TBC..._


	8. Chapter 8

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name. Plus, there's lyrics, of course, and probably other stuff I haven't thought up yet. Paraquote from 'Serenity', the original premiere episode of Firefly.

**Summary:** Her eyes were trained on the collar of Greg's rumpled shirt, the dark stains of moisture spreading steadily through the fabric -- the faint light reflected from Greg's face as he, himself, wept in turn.

**Rating: M**, which you must surely know by now.

**Pairings, etc.** Gregory House/Lisa Cuddy/James Wilson, Harry Potter/Luna Lovegood/Neville Longbottom, and all that that implies; James Potter/Lily Evans Potter; Gregory House/Regulus Black; Drake House (Draco Malfoy)/Ginevra Weasley; unrequited Severus Snape/Lily Evans, Gregory House/Lily Evans;

**Notes:** I) As much as I'd like to pretend HMD episode 5.04, 'Birthmarks' (or a lot of the past three seasons, really) didn't happen in canon, it _did_ help break my writer's block.

II) Harry went back to the Room of Hidden Things and retrieved the Half-Blood Prince's Advanced Potions Book after everything was over. Crabbe and the Fiendfyre monstrosity didn't happen here, obviously.

III) Many, many thanks to my awesome beta **silja_b** for helping me make sure this series hasn't completely destroyed either fandom, as far as I know. I'm indescribably grateful.

IV) This chapter is unbeta'ed due to contact difficulties and my own overexcitement to post regardless. Any and all errors are _MINE AND MINE, ONLY! _Reviews are always encouraged and very much appreciated.

**Warnings:** _YES_, now that the seventh book is out, this is **officially AU**. At least now I have material to work with...so: **DH-COMPLIANT (EXCEPT FOR THAT FRUSTRATING EPILOGUE) SPOILER ALERT!**

_...If you marry me, would you bury me -- would you carry me 'til the end...?_

Lisa struggled with two separate bags of groceries as she crossed the threshold of House's apartment, irritated in the extreme because she knew damned well that not only was he home, his brother was there too and neither, apparently, had ever bothered to learn manners, let alone chivalry, it seemed.

"Gee, _thanks_ for the..." she started to snipe as she kicked Greg's front door shut behind her.

Her words trailed off as she caught sight of the strangest tableau she had yet to lay her eyes on -- and considering she'd known Greg was a wizard for more than twenty years, this was actually new: not only had Greg sunk into what was clearly an uncomfortable kneeling position with his hands on his thighs before his suddenly blazing fireplace (the flames had been _green_, it later occurred to her to remember), but Drake and Jimmy -- still in his coat and jacket, his tie only slightly loosened -- each knelt beside him, their eyes all glued to the flames, expressions of worry she'd never seen so severe etched into their faces as John's head spoke through the flames.

"...don't know how the fuck that damned necklace got anywhere near her -- Drake, you said no one'd seen it since you tried to return it to that store you bought it in -- "

John's tone was frantic, accusatory, and a highly agitated Drake responded in kind, "That's right, Dad -- John, blame me -- I'm such an ungrateful, murderous little _motherless son of a bitch_ that I'd willingly give my mother a necklace I know goddamned bloody well would kill her -- !"

Lisa felt the bags she was holding fall nervelessly from her fingers, only to watch Greg's hand extend backward without his head turning around and his voice hissing, "_Wingardium Leviosa!_", bringing the falling articles to a halt and another series of swishes and flicks sending them flying into the kitchen and into the cabinets and refrigerator. All the while, his face never left his father's.

"Dad, that necklace was confiscated by the Ministry from St. Mungo's after that Gryffindor Katie Bell almost died Drake's sixth year. There's no way he would have been able to get anywhere near it and, hey, here's a thought -- your son wouldn't kill his mother!"

Greg was yelling now, gripping his cane where it lay next to him and quicker than Cuddy could follow, thrusting it into the flames. John's pained swearing was cut off moments later by Drake launching himself to his feet with an unintelligible cry, turning sharply on his heel, and striding to the door without looking at Lisa. Another flick of Greg's wand, though, sent the still-open front door slamming shut, nearly catching Drake's fingers in the process.

Drake whirled back around, heaving breathlessly, and Lisa could see two spots of color high on his cheekbones in his pale face. "Let me out," he snarled in a low deadly voice.

"No," Greg stated simply, pushing himself forward onto his hands to give himself leverage to turn around. "And you can try Apparating, but my apartment is warded against it right now. Splinch yourself if you damned well want to, Mom'll be glad to see you in St. Mungo's next to her, I suppose."

"He thinks -- "

"What?" Greg snapped, heaving himself to his feet somehow and overbalancing so that Jimmy had to lunge up and catch him. Greg yanked himself out of Jimmy's arms and stalked forward, his face pale as Drake's, lined and furious. "What the fuck _does_ Dad think, Drake? And why aren't you at least _trying_ to defend yourself?"

"Why the hell should anyone believe -- "

"We shouldn't!" Greg snapped and Drake froze, his mouth trembling slightly before hardening as he stared coldly at his older brother who stared stonily back. Lisa watched as a tear trailed down Drake's otherwise expressionless face but Greg plunged on ruthlessly, "We don't have a damned good reason to trust that you're not lying at all -- _except_ that you love Mom as much as I do, you haven't done a single Dark Magic spell since leaving Lucius Malfoy's control when you were sixteen, and no one without clearance into the Department of Mysteries -- which you don't fucking _have_ -- could have got that necklace or anything else out of the Ministry. It's just like it was then, Drake. There were intended targets and someone else, this time, Xeno and Mom -- happened to get in the way. Now. Get. Back. Over. Here."

Lisa watched emptily as Drake's shoulder sagged, his head dropping forward and his body following as he fell forward onto his knees and began to sob audibly. Greg eased himself forward, one knee at a time, until both his arms were around his brother's shoulders. It was only then that Lisa noticed the three of them were all crying.

"What...happened?" she heard herself whisper, her eyes widening further as she watched Greg cradle Drake's face against his neck, rubbing small, solid circles in his back.

It was Jimmy who answered, his voice cracking as he slowly straightened and looked at her, his face crumpling further as he watched Greg fruitlessly trying to console his little brother. "It's Blythe -- an-and her brother -- Greg and Drake's uncle, Xeno...Xenophilius Lovegood. She -- he's dead...Blythe's in a coma."

"What?" Lisa asked, her voice nearly unheard even as Drake's sobs became inaudible. Her eyes were trained on the collar of Greg's rumpled shirt, the dark stains of moisture spreading steadily through the fabric -- the faint light reflected from Greg's face as he, himself, wept in turn.

Jimmy ran his hand roughly through already tousled hair, "Someone s-sent her some kind of necklace -- Greg and Drake won't tell me anything about it, I -- " he flung a hand back toward the fireplace where John's head had now disappeared from. "She'd gone to visit her brother at his house in England and evidently there are still some people angry about the stuff he printed during the war Harry Potter fought. Someone blew up Xenophilius' house with some kind of animal part -- Greg says he probably thought it was some kind of creature's horn that he'd been trying to find for decades -- a Crumple-something -- and he picked it up, apparently the wrong thing to do because it was filled with some kind of explosive liquid. Blythe went with their cousin Luna to go identify her brother's body at the Ministry and someone went to Nyack and left a package addressed to her. She came back to get John for the funeral -- they were going to send you mail about it. She thought it was a gift from John at first and she picked it up to put it on -- "

"She's been away from the magical world too fucking long," Greg ground out, his fingers digging into his brother's thin shoulders in what Lisa was certain was a painful gesture, but Drake didn't so much as wince. "That was the necklace Drake bought from Borgin and Burkes when he was in sixth year and Lord Voldemort ordered him to kill Dumbledore. It hadn't left the Ministry since they placed it under those security charms when Bell was hospitalized. Somehow it got to Mom."

Greg looked at Drake, then, dragging them both roughly back to their feet. "You're coming with me, you little shit -- "

"Greg -- " Jimmy cut in, but Greg dragged Drake over to the front door and outside into the evening drizzle (now a downpour) Lisa had just left.

Jimmy led Lisa's stunned form over to Greg's couch, where they both dropped heavily onto it and crowded together. The television was muted and Jimmy switched it off, unable to bear watching cartoons even on mute. The sounds of Princeton outside intruded heavily on the silence of Greg's apartment, but neither spoke. There was nothing to do now, but wait.

***

Drake felt the compression smashing his body relieved, only to find himself and an equally soaked Greg standing on the banks of the same river he recalled instantly from years before. In the distance, a huge mill chimney interrupted the otherwise clear skyline but it was no longer crumbling apart. Greg didn't loosen his hold on Drake's arm as he dried both their clothes and together they marched toward Spinner's End. Drake noticed Greg had forgotten his cane, but didn't remark upon it. If Greg was just going to dump him here, what the sodding hell did he care how much pain the bastard was in?

He tried to ignore the distinct twinge his chest gave at such untoward thoughts toward a man who, until now, had been nothing but kind -- in his own strange way -- to Drake but now seemed so foreign.

Drake noticed that Greg resolutely avoided eye contact with him, but it wouldn't have been necessary -- the older man's shields and body language were a solid brick wall. It felt strange that Greg was suddenly so cut off from him -- even stranger when he realized he hadn't noticed their closeness becoming a matter of course.

Drake gasped as suddenly he found himself facing what was obviously the same flat, now nearly unrecognizable from the outside as the damage and filth that had accumulated on the door and front step over decades had been completely cleaned away, the paint no longer peeling -- the house number now gleaming. Greg lifted a hand and knocked firmly on the door. The knocker, now replaced with a miniature version of the Hogwarts crest, seemed to come alive. The four animals' eyes surveyed them both, their miniscule mouths moving simultaneously. _Whom shall we say is calling?_

"Gregory and Drake House," Greg spoke at last and Drake couldn't restrain himself from turning to goggle at his -- his _brother_, who was scowling ceaselessly at the door before them, not even flinching when it flew open and two pairs of hands yanked them both inside.

_...She calls the mansion not a house, but a tomb...He's always choking from the stench and the fume -- the wedding party all collapsed in the room, so send my resignation to the bride and the groom (let's go down)...this elevator only goes up to ten -- he's not around, he's always looking at men -- down by the pool, he doesn't have many friends, as they are facedown and bloated, snap a shot with the lens..._

The sitting room was larger now than he remembered and the surrounding shelves still ached, full of black and brown leather books, but now dispersed among them were cheerier objects both of magical and Muggle origin. Luna, he noticed, was nowhere to be found. A family portrait over the fireplace (Potter, Longbottom, Luna, and their then-toddling son Noah Francis -- he'd been secondly named after Neville's father -- all wandering around cheerfully in sharp contrast to the strained worry now on both Potter and Longbottom's real faces) now hung where barren boards had gathered dust before.

Drake sank down on the settee as Potter and Longbottom released their holds on both he and Greg. He couldn't help but stare around the room, noting all the differences. Greg snapping fingers in his face brought his attention back to the matter at hand.

"We need your help, Houdini," Greg said to Harry, ignoring the slight wince the so-nicknamed wizard gave in return. "Someone's trying have Drake brought in by the Ministry on murder charges and they've used our mother and your mutual father-in-law to do it."

Drake tried to avoid looking at either Potter or Longbottom's faces but they were obviously in disagreement with his plan because Longbottom forcibly took hold of Drake's chin and trained his eyes on the round face before him.

"Tell me you had nothing to do with Luna's father's death," Longbottom ordered, his stony, controlled voice a far cry from the wavering mewl Drake so remembered. Drake half-suspected Longbottom would forcibly dose him with Veritaserum if given half a chance. As it was, none of that mattered now.

"I didn't send _Luna's father_ an Erumpment horn," Drake ground out viciously, his grey eyes now glittering with habitual (he'd thought abandoned or at least forgotten) malice. "And I sure as hell didn't send _my mother_ that Blood-Opal necklace with the Ministry's security signature all over it that would have incinerated me if I'd so much as tried to breach the perimeter around it and _did I mention my mother's comatose in bloody hospital right now?_"

Draco threw himself to his feet, folding his arms without thought. "My father's screaming for my blood," he snapped bitterly. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised your suspicion jumped straight to me."

"Your _father's_ in Azkaban, Malfoy, as is -- " Harry started, but was cut off when Greg shot to his feet and shoved the handle of his cane under Harry's chin, his face remaining emotionless as Harry squawked loudly in surprise, his eyes watering as he began to choke.

"Might I remind you, Harry, that _your father's_ behavior was never so upstanding as everyone likes to think?" he asked quietly, silently counting the seconds he had left before the blood flow would need to be restored to Harry's body. "Need I _remind you_ that your mother -- my best friend -- was going to divorce him? That she wrote me before she died -- I'd be happy to show you the letter -- revealing that she'd caught dear, heroic, 'nicest', _cowardly, snivelling remorseless asshole 'you'd ever meet' Potter_ lacing her morning tea with Amortentia?"

Potter was gurgling faintly now, visibly trying to refrain from crying as Greg suddenly released his press on his jugular and the younger man fell to his hands and knees, gasping, tears falling from where his untidy head was pointed at the floor. Longbottom was staring unabashedly at Greg now, his mouth hanging slightly open before whipping his wand out and pointing it at Greg. Drake felt the pull of a nonverbal Summoning Charm and watched his own wand fly out of his hand before Greg's shot out to catch it and hand it back to him.

"All's fair in love and war, Nev," Greg said bracingly. "We're all family and if Harry'd be nice enough to remember that, I won't have to ever do that again. He wants to play dirty, he should know I have no problems doing so, too."

Drake faintly noticed above his shock that Greg's voice had changed, adopting the British accent he did when recounting memories of school and Professor Snape. Longbottom haltingly schooled his face back into an inscrutable expression and bent down to help his partner from the floor. When Potter stood again, he was shaking visibly. Potter refused to look at him but Drake could see his white, nearly translucent face was streaked with tears now, as well.

"I love you, Harry," Greg said calmly, lifting Potter's chin to see him properly. "I don't ever want to have to do that again. We're not enemies, stop acting like it."

Harry jerked his face out of Greg's hold but said nothing and Greg didn't pry for an answer, instead turning to stroll around the sitting room. He stopped in front of the fireplace and turned back around, his eyes cold again but when he spoke his voice was light. "I have to tell you, Houdini, you never cease to amaze me."

He turned away again and stared at the painting before turning on his heel in a surprisingly graceful about-face and retracing his steps to the settee where his brother still sat. He stopped before Harry and tilted his head toward the right, giving him an appraising look.

"For someone who offered to host Drake and Ginny's wedding in a few weeks," Greg continued in a falsely cheerful tone. "You certainly changed your tune quickly enough when something popped up to bolster your old suspicions and biases."

Greg ground the end of his cane into the floorboards beneath their feet, but his eyes never left Potter's, his tone never changing. "I'd've thought with all the crap the Ministry put you through all your years at school, you'd never be such an impulsive, unforgiving tit, yourself. Apparently, I was wrong."

Drake couldn't help but glance at Potter and Greg now, seeing the shocked, plaintative awe that openly marred Potter's face -- the thin veneer of tears that shone over Potter's eyes.

"No -- Greg, I -- "

"Were good and ready to go off, half-cocked, hurling every insult you thought you could get away with at my _little brother_, your wife's cousin, _my mother and father's son_, just because something happened that you convinced yourself fit Drake's signature style, right?"

Potter wilted under Greg's intense stare, his hand clenching his own cane, seemingly for the first time noticing Greg lacked his own.

He opened his mouth but Greg cut him off. "Don't change the fucking subject, Harry," he snapped, and Potter's mouth clicked back shut.

"You want to Fire-Call the Aurors, you go right ahead and do that," Greg stated quietly then, his face closing again, and Harry's mouth fell slightly open once more. "I'll even give you my address -- oh, wait, you already have it, don't you?"

Greg waved a seemingly careless hand and reached into his pocket before realizing it was empty. He removed his wand again, waving it and conjuring a business card. Without further comment, he strolled over to the large writing desk in the corner and picked up one of the ballpoint pens he knew must belong to Harry, using it to scribble **221B Baker Street; Princeton, New Jersey, United States** on the back.

"I figure that with all the bluster and overconfidence in its own abilities the Ministry exudes, my zip code won't be necessary. Hell, with this card, you could even come after me at work if you wanted, Nev," House reasoned in the same falsely cheerful tone he'd used earlier. Neville's already prominent blush deepened.

He bade Drake to stand and took hold of his arm before starting to return to the street outside. "I really wish I'd been able to raise you, Harry," he said then, his voice heavier than Drake had ever heard it. "Maybe if I had, you wouldn't be so easily ready to believe the worst of family. You gave the Dursleys more due than they deserved and now you don't want to make that mistake again."

Greg sighed, carefully reaching up and placing his arm around Drake's shoulder. "Too bad it seems to translate into undue criticism of those who _don't_ deserve it. I can't make you forgive Drake for being such an arse to you in school, just like I can't make you forgive Severus Snape -- though, it's really, _really_ odd that you can live in the house of a man you claim to hate from beyond the veil -- "

Potter flinched at those words, but desperate words came out before he could stop them, "I _don't_ hate him anymore! I haven't in ages!"

Drake watched as Greg feigned surprise. "Really? Even though he tried his damnedest to make your life as miserable as James Potter made ours?"

Potter shivered, clenching his fists as Neville watched him thoughtfully now. "I...I...you know what everyone told me he was like. I wanted to be like him _so much_, but then..."

Greg's right eyebrow rose and he frowned slightly. "You looked in that Pensieve and got a firsthand look at what sort of pissant your father really was -- or rather, only the beginning."

Potter nodded miserably, shuddering, and Drake felt Greg's arm slide from around him. "We all have our moments, Houdini," he said quietly, padding back to the settee and sitting down once more. Drake started to follow, but Greg gave a shake of his head and he halted. "Your mother, Regulus, Severus, and I hated your father for good reason. He thought he deserved her, was entitled to her -- Severus thought the same thing, unfortunately, but the difference was that Lily chose to be his friend until he fucked up and threw us all away like rubbish. James didn't think he needed to gain her trust, her friendship, her love, her _anything_. He and Sirius saw whatever they wanted and they took it -- rather like a certain criminally insane cadre of murderers I could mention..."

Potter was crying openly now, tears streaming down his face, and something in Drake wanted to tell Greg to stop, that he was hurting him unnecessarily, but Longbottom beat him to the quick.

"House, that's enough," he snapped, attempting to take Potter's hand but Potter lurched away, hunching in on himself while trying to retain his balance despite his own withered leg.

"I'm _saying_," Greg amended, his voice rising slightly. "That there is no black and white. There is no good and evil -- not in the way people want to believe. With all you've seen by now, Harry, you should be keeping that first and foremost in mind. Anyone can convince themselves they're in the right if they want something badly enough. You used an Unforgivable against Amycus and Alecto Carrow, didn't you?"

"They -- the Carrows attacked -- " Harry stopped himself short, his shameful blush deepening yet and still.

Greg nodded, "They hurt Minerva McGonagall so you used the first curse that came to mind, illegal, immoral, but effective nonetheless. And you didn't think twice about it, did you?"

Potter's eyes were huge in his face now and his breathing was shallow. Drake wondered was he going to pass out.

"And in your own sixth year, you used that book -- " Greg pointed to the self-repair charmed copy of Advanced Potion-Making that sat upon the nearby parlor table. "To curse Drake's insides out."

"I didn't mean -- I didn't know that was going to happen!" Harry burst out, his voice thick with emotion. He turned and stared wildly at Drake, no doubt remembering the way the skin in his face had split open. Without thinking, Drake reached up and traced the faint scars that Snape's ministrations had reduced the damage to. He felt his breath rush in and realized he hadn't taken one in quite some time.

"You didn't think about the repercussions of your actions or what might happen if you simply started spouting spells you found in a book," Greg said darkly and Harry nodded miserably. "Ginny tells me she and Hermione both had very specific words to say the subject and you brushed them off -- you didn't want to hear it."

"I'm sorry," Potter whispered almost inaudibly. He dragged his eyes upward to meet Drake's and for the first time since they were eleven didn't greet him with contempt, but rather self-loathing. "I'm so sorry."

"I forgive you," Drake said, starting slightly when he realized how easily the words came. The weight that poured away from Harry's face made Drake look away, somehow himself ashamed of the open relief reflected in the other man's expression.

"Are you going to help us find out who did this, or are you going to continue to be petty, asinine, and an embarrassment to your mother?"

"Greg!" Drake snapped, throwing him a filthy look. "Potter's got the fucking point of it -- let it go!"

Greg frowned and winced then, and Draco was suddenly struck by how much he resembled their own father, John House, in expression and deed. "That was unnecessary. I'm sorry." Okay, maybe in expression, he conceded.

Harry exhaled shakily and turned, stumping over to the desk and writing something on a piece of parchment with the ballpoint pen. "These are Hermione and Ron's addresses. Are -- " he paused upon turning back around. "Are you sure you don't want to say hi to Remus while you're here?"

"It was a full moon last night, Harry," Greg said bracingly. "Wolfsbane or not, he needs rest. I can Fire-Call him if I like."

Now Harry gave him a confused expression. "Ron's dad says you're not connected to the Floo Network, that no one can find you -- I'm surprised you're here at all."

Drake couldn't contain himself anymore, "Jesus, Potter, you're really that thick, aren't you? What part of 'our mother is comatose in St. Mungo's' didn't you get? That trumps 'I hate the wizarding world' any day."

"Oh," Harry blanched, his blush returning, and Drake really wished he'd learn at least _some_ pride. "Yeah, sorry -- sorry about -- "

"Stop nattering on, Houdini," Greg said patiently, taking the parchment from him. "I'm sorry I said all that horrible shite about you being an embarrassment to your mother's memory. I get carried away with my motivational speeches, I'm told."

Harry gawked at him now, "Motivational? What the sodding hell school of _motivation_ did you and Snape attend, anyway? How to Cut People Down to Size and Break Their Spirits in Ten Easy Steps?"

Greg grinned ruefully, "Uh, no -- that would be the one once jointly staffed by Colonel John House and Tobias Snape, actually. I hear your uncle was Junior Undersecretary, though."

Harry gave a small smirk and began following them to the door, "He was a director, actually, but he was ousted by a coup of some sort. Really fluffy, sunshiny sorts who completely turned the place around -- put sparkly, bubbly stuff all over everywhere -- you'd never recognize it. The beds are like a five-star hotel, even."

Greg snorted, stuffing the parchment in his pocket. "I'll bet. Bye Harry, bye Neville. Tell Noah Wrackspurts don't actually exist."

"Every day," Neville chimed in at last, closing the door quietly behind them.

Drake stood on the stoop next to Greg, still rather out-of-sorts. "What the hell was that all about?" Then he goggled at Greg before hissing, "James Potter gave his wife _Amortentia_?"

"You never heard that and will never repeat it to anyone on pain of death," Greg said without looking at him, but Drake heard the dead seriousness in his voice. "Swear to me."

Drake swallowed, "I swear."

And then Greg turned and pulled him into nothingness once more.

...TBC...


	9. Chapter 9

**Excuse**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Shore, Singer, Jacobs, and Rowling are the architects of this amalgam. Blame them. Oh, and thank **kidsnurse** for the shrink with the unfortunate name. Plus, there's lyrics, of course, and probably other stuff I haven't thought up yet.

**Summary:** "Gregory is your more troublesome child," Dickinson probed, unable to resist questioning the man he's heard so much about secondhand.

John snorted then, "Well, hell -- he's bleedin' to death, you tell me."

**Rating: M**, which you must surely know by now.

**Pairings, etc.** Gregory House/Lisa Cuddy/James Wilson, Harry Potter/Luna Lovegood/Neville Longbottom, and all that that implies; James Potter/Lily Evans Potter; Gregory House/Regulus Black; Drake House (Draco Malfoy)/Ginevra Weasley; unrequited Severus Snape/Lily Evans, Gregory House/Lily Evans;

**Notes:** I) Okay, I'm thinking that if this story is going to be finished, I'll be writing it in the early hours of the morning. Not a bad way to wake up, really.

II) **JuliaBohemian** indirectly inspired the phone call in this chapter.

III) Many, many thanks to my awesome previous beta **silja_b** for helping me make sure this series hasn't completely destroyed either fandom, as far as I know. I'm indescribably grateful.

IV) This chapter is unbeta'ed and I suppose that now I'm in the market for a new one if anyone's up for the job. At the moment, any and all errors are **mine**.

**Warnings:** AU, multiple pairings of both the slash and het variety, with mixes of the two in some cases. I don't think anything terribly objectionable happens in this chapter. Not even any whacking. Those familiar with The Contract and its spin-offs know what whacking is. *nods*

Dickinson was in the middle of a session when he heard a very loud thud outside his door. Excusing himself succinctly, he eased open the door to the vestibule that separated his inner office from the reception area to find a deathly pale, careworn Dr. Gregory House covered in blood while lying in a tangled pile with a young man he recognized from Dr. House's description.

The young man -- Drake -- bolted to his feet and began hauling Dr. House into a semi-sitting position, all while ranting feverishly with a very clear British accent, albeit, in French.

Dickinson wasn't fluent in French, but he managed to understand that House had just done something extremely dangerous and hadn't been able to count on it working outside of a huge margin of potential error.

Drake's eyes landed on his and Dickinson nodded back toward his closed door, "I'm in session -- here, let's get him out of harm's way."

Together they carefully lifted House's limp body and carefully propped him up against the nearest adjacent wall. Drake ran both his hands through his hair and scowled, "I can make us both blend into the scenery here, but if your other patient trips, we're bollocksed."

Then Drake laughed brokenly, "Not that I'm not anyway -- not that _we're_ not...oh, my God..."

Dickinson froze momentarily before trying for a conciliatory gesture in light of his lingering shock. "Wait, here, Mr. House -- I just need finishing up with this patient." He was whispering, he knew, but Drake heard him because he hurriedly waved Dickinson away before pulling out what the therapist recognized as a wand and scowling down at Dr. House's now deeply unconscious form.

Dickinson took a deep breath and composed himself before going back into his office. He didn't glance back at either Dr. House or his brother, for fear of giving away whatever the younger had done in the preceding moment.

It was an hour before his patient left and Dickinson allowed himself to breathe a momentary sigh of relief before focusing on the matters at hand. He decided to use his remaining free time to pretend he was eating dinner while he helped Drake carry Dr. House over to his couch and lay the intermittently conscious man down.

"Apparating 'cross-continent twice within the space of an hour -- what the bloody hell is wrong with you -- !" Drake was still ranting as he monitored Dr. House's vitals, peering under his eyelids with light from the end of his wand. "Apparating near Muggles -- if Mum weren't in a coma, she'd kill you!" he snapped, two spots of color high on the cheekbones of his sharp-planed face.

Dickinson felt a surge of empathetic shock course through him as he took in Dr. House's ill form. Dr. House's skin was deathly pale under the large quantity of blood that had spilled over down his shirt and his eyes flickered under their lids. "What's happened to him? You said he tried to do something across continents?"

Drake's bitter expression glanced upon him for the second it took to affirm he was listening, but his hands were busier rifling through what seemed to be endless pockets within what had previously only seemed to be a normal Oxford shirt. "He didn't _try_ to do anything, he _did_ it and that's the effing problem!"

Drake was staring down at a mangled clump of some kind of plant that he'd retrieved from one of the pockets, sorting lightly through it with his fingers before making a growling noise and gingerly rubbing it over Dr. House's still leaking nose.

Dickinson brought himself down into a crouch beside the pair and peered worriedly at his patient. "Will that wake him up?"

"No," Drake bit out. "He's gone and bloody Splinched himself -- whatever part of his nose is missing is still technically attached to his body, only magically instead of physically. Dittany helps reunite the separated parts by balancing the components in the blood and tissue that were disrupted by improper Apparition. Greg knows damned well how dangerous it was going to be Apparating all the way to England _and back_, but no -- he did it and _took me along_. He could have killed himself doing it and then Dad and I -- and Lisa and James -- will lose _someone else_ we care so much about!"

Dickinson felt his face crumple in concern, carefully not touching Drake or trying to force him to turn to face him. "Your mother is -- "

"Dying," Drake snapped and now Dickinson watched as fresh tears landed on Drake's pants, mixing with flecks of mud and blood that had gotten on them during whatever Dr. House had done. "And our father thinks it's my fault and there's no fucking way I can even prove it because everyone I care about knows what I did and it doesn't matter that he was going to kill them if I didn't, just like it doesn't matter to Potter or Longbottom that Luna's my family now, too, just like she's Greg's -- which means that her father's my uncle and everything, too."

Drake threw the remains of the now putrefied plant on the floor next to his brother's body and ran his hands through his hair, digging his fingernails into his scalp as he fought back another shudder before managing to collect himself surprisingly quickly. "There's nothing else I can do at the moment -- I have -- I have to make a call."

Dickinson started at the rather unexpected change in topic but indicated the telephone sitting on his desk, which Drake snatched up, dialing numbers seemingly without much thought.

"What?"

"Dad, we need -- "

"Drake, where the fuck are you? Where's Greg?"

"If you'll just listen for a moment, sir, I'll be able to tell you. We're in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, apparently. Greg didn't say and now he's nearly comatose."

"What?" Drake hadn't thought the urgency in John's voice could have intensified but he'd been immediately proven wrong.

"He -- we Apparated, Greg taking me Side-Along, to Spinner's End. He took me to see Harry and Neville -- I think he was planning on asking their help, and probably Luna's, to figure out who set me up."

"Why the hell didn't he just say so?"

"You weren't really listening to anyone at the time of our departure, sir," Drake bit out, then, wincing at the upbraiding he was certain was coming. Instead of bringing him up short, however, John hesitated.

"...Do you understand how the hell this all looks, Drake?"

Drake felt his entire face collapse into a deep frown, "With all due respect, sir, I can't say I care how this looks."

He didn't voice the 'but fuck you for saying so' that belonged at the end of that sentiment.

John was silent on the other end for a few moments more. "You're in Pennsylvania -- why?"

"I already said I don't know, but I gather the man who's office we landed in is someone Greg knows pretty well. He hasn't said anything about either of us being crazy and -- " Drake glanced back at Dickinson to find him taking Greg's pulse.

"He's getting Greg's vitals, though I already applied dittany to his face. I wasn't aware it was actually possible to Splinch one's insides, but it appears some part of Greg's nasal passages are no longer properly connected. I suppose he got off light in that regard, though he's still bleeding -- it's slowed some."

"Come get me. Side-Along me to wherever Greg took you -- your final destination."

That wasn't a request, Drake knew, he just wasn't certain how receptive Greg would be to the developments that would inevitably follow.

Drake exhaled, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his own nose before saying, "Yes, sir, goodbye, sir," and hanging up.

Placing the phone back on its base, Drake held back the urge to snarl and glared at Dickinson, who seemed to take it in stride.

"I have to go get our father. He wants me to bring him here. Can you keep Greg stable until I get back?"

To his credit, Dickinson didn't hesitate before nodding and retrieving a blanket to cover Greg with.

Drake turned away before pausing and seeming to consider something. "Greg's partners aren't safe -- they're Muggles like you and my father are. Would it be alright with you if I brought them here to regroup? Say nothing of the fact that Greg needs medical attention."

Dickinson found himself smiling rather shakily, "Oh -- by all means! I've tried to convince your brother that my presence is a safe one. I guess I just didn't expect him to take it so literally as to bring his family here when you're all in danger."

Drake let his gaze fall back to his brother's limp form and Dickinson could see tears coming back to his eyes. "Sometimes I think he cares too much," the younger man murmured before turning away again and a loud crack sounded through the air as he disappeared, leaving an astonished Dickinson and unconscious Greg in his wake.

***

The first thing that came to Dickinson's mind when a small pop sounded as Drake and John House both landed with practiced ease in front of his desk was that Greg House had been correct in calling his father a physically imposing man. but also that John House was evidently extremely worried about the state of his family, which most certainly included Dr. House.

There was another pop, then, and Drake froze before gnashing his teeth and turning to face the small redheaded woman who'd also appeared in their midst.

"Ginny, I need -- "

"If you _think_ I'm just going to be sat at home by myself when our family's being picked off -- "

"It's too dangerous!" Drake snapped, prompting 'Ginny' to pull out her wand and point it at him, bringing him up short.

"Harry trained me, not you. I fought Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries, _don't_ tell me what's too dangerous."

"Ginevra," John House barked, bringing her attention to him. "If -- "

"Are you sodding joking?" Ginny overrode, now training her wand on Dr. and Drake House's father, her face carefully composed, though it was obvious how angry she truly was. "You were good and ready to have Drake packed off to Azkaban not even an hour ago -- _don't_ start playing the part of the dutiful father _now_ just because there's _proof_ that he and Greg are in danger! You readily tossed Drake to the side, just like you've done Greg -- _don't_ try to act like you should be trusted!"

Drake took a deep breath and stepped between Ginny's wand and John's chest, his hand coming up to cover that which held the wand. "It's patently clear that no one trusts anyone else, but we're on a salvage mission right now, Gin. We can recriminate later, but we have to make sure the Muggles we love are safe. I still have to go get James and Lisa -- will you come with me? If I Side-Along them myself, I'll end up right next to Greg."

Ginny brushed off his plea and took hold of his hand, "I don't know why you bother asking, you prat," she told him and the next moment two identical cracks sounded and they were gone.

John House exhaled gustily, then, spinning on his heel to face the couch where Dickinson sat with his eldest son and it was only then as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

"Shit," John bit out, striding quickly over to Greg and kneeling beside him. "Gregory, you _know_ better than this," his voice was quiet now, hoarse. Dickinson had the distinct impression John had forgotten he was even in the room. At least, he did until John's eyes flickered up to meet his and the older man froze, slowly retracting the hand that had been placed on Greg's colder one.

"Colonel House," Dickinson said quietly, "If you truly love your family, you won't let the fact that you have an audience prevent you from expressing that fact. From what I can tell, your sons are either gravely injured or in quite a lot of danger -- both, actually. What is it to you that I'm here?"

John frowned, seeming to master himself before returning his hand to the back of Greg's.

"He looks dead," the quiet voice said heavily. "My...my wife...she looks..." John's hand was shaking now. "She's gonna die -- no one even knows -- and now Greg's gone and damned Splinched himself. He _knows_ better than to -- "

John's mouth snapped shut and he cast a sidelong glance at Dickinson who displayed both his hands, showcasing their emptiness. "Dr. House -- Greg did explain the existence of magic to me. He told me about the difference between Muggles like us and wizards and witches like your family. He did some spells -- I'm not going to tell anyone. I can't betray my patient's trust in such a way."

"Patient?" John's voice was gruff once more but Dickinson shook his head.

"I just told you, I can't. We have more important things to worry about at the moment regardless of that fact."

John's mouth pulled downward into a sort of mixed frown, but he nodded nonetheless. "My wife and my sons are magical, yeah," he conceded, frowning further. "She's originally from Ireland, but hasn't lived there since she was a tiny little girl. Her family lived in England before coming here -- oh, it was a long time ago. Before I was born actually, she -- wizards and witches don't age like us. And they live a long damned time."

John's voice softened again and he looked down at Greg's still face but didn't seem to see it. "I always assumed she'd outlive me -- I know Greg will, doesn't seem like anything can kill him. Drake, maybe -- then again, he doesn't run off gettin' into shit he shouldn't mess with like his brother."

"Gregory is your more troublesome child," Dickinson probed, unable to resist questioning the man he's heard so much about secondhand.

John snorted then, "Well, hell -- he's bleedin' to death, you tell me."

A series of small pops cascaded behind them and Dickinson looked over to find Drake and Ginny holding firmly onto Dr. Cuddy and James' arms before letting them go so Lisa could rush to Greg's side while James promptly lost the ability to stand. Both Drake and Ginny bent down to help him back to his feet but didn't let go again nor was James in any particular hurry to make them.

"You _idiot_!" Cuddy bit out viciously, on the other hand, and Dickinson could see she was angrily clutching an actual leather doctor's bag, which was monogrammed with Dr. House's initials. "You certifiable _ass_!"

James had settled somewhat but was still visibly ill as he made his way over to Dickinson and offered him a slightly crazed smile. "Hi, Dick," he said sheepishly and Dickinson snorted.

"You get to explain this mess to Artois, Jim." Then he reconsidered, "Well, not if you're all -- what, heading overseas?"

"I have no idea," James burst out, throwing his hands up and looking at John, seemingly coming to a decision before reaching out with a hand for John to shake.

John watched it for a few seconds before clasping it back. "You hate me. You and Lisa both."

James shook his head, "Not _entirely_, but...that really doesn't matter right now." James gestured to Greg, who was now being administered to by both Lisa and Drake. "Greg and Drake do. I suppose I should ask you if Greg's going to be alright since you have more experience in this world than either Lisa or I."

John scowled heavily and ran his hand through his hair, though managing not to disturb it at all. "Hell if I know. I've never actually seen anybody Splinched in person. I know real bad cases need to go to St. Galder's in New York, though. St. Mungo's in London."

"He'll be okay after a blood transfusion," Drake bit out, running his wand carefully over Greg's body. "I can do that with magic because we can't risk a mess or being seen in public, but I need you to come here, Dad."

Without hesitation, John stalked over and dropped himself next to Drake, rolling up his sleeve. Even Drake seemed taken aback at the lack of convincing needed.

"You're wastin' time, son," John reminded him and Drake nodded before tapping John's arm and apparently highlighting all the veins, as well as his ulnar artery.

Drake placed his wand at the crook of John's elbow and did a nonverbal spell that created a translucent connection between John and Greg's own arm, which was now exposed. Blood was siphoned forth and disappeared into Greg, whose color immediately improved while John paled dramatically.

Dickinson felt his mouth drop open but managed to force it back shut.

Drake gave his wand a tiny shake and the passage dissolved, leaving two neat circular bruises on either of the elder Houses' arms. Drake then waved his wand again and produced a small quantity of sugar cubes, which he handed to John to eat.

"We don't need you passing out, too," he urged when John hesitated in favor of waiting for Greg to awaken. His father exhaled irritably but ate them all the same.

"What happens now?" Ginny asked, and Dickinson looked over to see her visibly restraining herself from examining his office now that House was stable.

"What happens now is common courtesy since we totally took over his office," House's voice issued from the couch, eyes still shut.

"Not before we kill you," James burst out, reaching out and bringing both Lisa and John backward with him in clear circumvention of just that.

House sat up slowly and blinked, giving his head a small shake while examining himself. "Look, I did what I had to..."

House's eyes had apparently landed on John's feet and he froze, staring at his father, who was watching him back with a worried expression House had never personally seen on his face.

House's mouth dropped open slightly and he blinked several times more, but remained silent.

John took a deep breath and asked quietly, "What'd you find out in Spinner's End?"

"That Potter's a deceitful, two-faced -- " Drake started, but Ginny clapped a hand over his mouth and urged House to continue.

"Someone's trying to set Drake up and the plot's totally working since no one in the wizarding world outside our family has seen him since he was sixteen. Before we came back home, Harry gave me the keys to the Potter property in Leeds. We can either go there or the Rook, though Xeno probably put all kinds of hexes on it that we have no idea about let alone how to lift them."

"That paranoid old bat," John conceded sadly, knowing that if Blythe still had any inkling of his death, she would be devastated. "Anyway, you're a Ravenclaw, too -- Drake's a Slytherin, between the two of you cunning and intelligent boys, couldn't you figure it out?"

House froze, and Drake laughed emptily.

"Did you just compliment us?" House asked with an exaggerated look of confusion, to which John rolled his eyes.

"We don't have time for this, you two," he reminded them bitterly and Greg slowly climbed to his feet.

"Since by now I've had a Trace placed on myself for Apparating from one populated Muggle area to another, we'll have to do this with Portkeys -- "

"Which is also illegal," Drake cut in before John could object. "But desperate times, desperate measures that won't get my idiot brother killed in so-called service to me -- overprotective, self-_uninvolved idiot_."

"Are you quite done?" House asked, seemingly finishing up some quick thinking and walking over to pick up a set of paperweights on Dickinson's desk. "We do have to get the fleeing started -- takes coordination and much planning -- these weren't gifts or anything, were they?" he asked in a careless tone and James immediately walked over and snatched them out of his hands.

"Yes, from _me_, House! Just -- just conjure something! I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to be rude and inconsiderate when there aren't people trying to kill you."

"Don't be silly, Jimmy. Nobody's trying to kill me. They're just trying to get my brother tossed in Azkaban now that they've realized he still exists. And, on that note, Drake, we need to make a list of everyone in your class in Slytherin who wasn't killed in the war. But first -- "

House unsheathed his own wand and waved it, bringing a pair of lacrosse sticks into existence. Cuddy snorted but managed to hold back a laugh, in response to which House rolled his eyes and turned back to Dickinson.

"I could Obliviate you if you like. They can't find out what you don't remember."

Dickinson noticed John flinching slightly out of the corner of his eye but pondered it for a moment before asking, "Would letting you do that be safer?"

"Yes," House said shortly, now without a trace of amusement and Dickinson took a deep breath.

"Okay, then. Do it. But how does this work?"

House sighed, glancing downward in that way Dickinson recognized as his embarrassed need to play with his cane rather than make eye contact. "I could simply make you forget the entire thing -- there'd be a rather large hole in your memory, but you won't have more than a slight feeling of something amiss. Or I could make you remember something else instead."

"So it's like conscious dissociation."

House scowled now, "Is there no time when you're not working?"

"No more than you, Dr. House," Dickinson grinned, sharing a glance with Drs. Cuddy and Wilson leading House to roll his eyes again.

"Fine, it's conscious disassociation. You wanna remember something else?"

"Yes, please -- would it be like a dream?"

"It'd have to be if Artois were to ask you about it or something."

"Right." Dickinson took a deep breath and walked over to where House stood, trying to calm himself as he realized magic was about to be used on him. "Okay."

"If you need to close your eyes, go ahead. It won't hurt or anything."

"The ultimate trust exercise."

"I really want to tell you to shut up, but in a few moments it'll be irrelevant -- _Obliviate_."

***

When Dickinson woke up, he was on the couch in his office with a bottle of Tylenol on the table next to it. Such an odd dream.

He wondered if the slight breach of protocol was worth the sardonic grin he'd get from Dr. House during his next session in return.

...TBC...


End file.
